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1

5TM

A HISTORY OF

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD

SIR W. HENRY LANNIN

A Historic Review o£the Order

of the Knights Hospitallers of

St. John of Jerusalem, of

Rhodes, and Malta

WITH A CLEAR AND AUTHORITATIVE ACCOUNTOF THE ORDER'S FOUNDING, ITS MARVELOUSACHIEVEMENTS THROUGHOUT CENTURIES, ITSKINSHIP AND CO-OPERATION WITH THE KNIGHTSOF THE TEMPLE, TOGETHER WITH AN ILLUMINATING SURVEY OF THE MOVEMENTS OF NATIONSANDTHEIRRELIGIOUS IMPULSESANDPREJUDICES

" I If

SIR HENRY LANNIN

BY

-

BOSTON

THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1922, by

to. Henry Lannin

PUBLIC LIBBAR,

.11 8293A

ASTOR. LENOX AND

TIU9EN J'OUNDaTIONC

R 1 MS L

The Pour Seas Press

Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

PREFATORY

AS every tree which adorns the surface of the

earth has upsprung from a vegetative seed

which to man's eye was hidden, in like manner

has every visible institution, of whatever nature

or formative mould, upsprung from some germ

inal source, and, very generally, the initial source

remains largely unknown, as also, it may be, of

slight interest to many who view with gratifying

zest and who take membership interest in the

increasing popularity of the working institution.

Though mankind's numerous institutions,—be

they good, bad, or indifferent,—have their roots

deeply imbedded in the soil of the historic past

of men's movements, struggles, philanthropic ac

tivities, yet we may well opine that whatsoever

zeal and impelling motive they possessed they had

no foreview as to their having founded an insti

tution which in time's onflow would grow into

international proportions. However, as "great

oaks from little acorns grow," so it is an evolu

tionary law that "first the blade, then the ear,

then the full corn in the ear." Manifestly enough,

by the law of from the lesser to the greater, every

human institution has materialized. Moreover,

the ever-extending bane or blessing outwardly

functioned by each society, institution, and Order

5

6 PREFATORY

under the sun invariably bears, in a greater or

lesser measure, the nature and essence of the

germinal root. True, there may have come upon

the institutional tree some blight which has per

verted and paralyzed it to such an extent as to

evilly affect in stock, limb, and twig, but in spite

of such calamitous event there still inheres a

latent root principle which when possibly revital

ized—if, indeed, the initial force was of serviceable

worth—will again manifest to ennobling results.

Then, also, as the on-sweep of centuries goes to

the change of manners, customs, and mode of

living,—all ever keeping step with the times, be

they what they may,— it follows that no ancient

institution which continues to exist can in wisdom

function in the same manner as of former cen

turies. Writing as to revision and change of

method by institutions, a historian has aptly said,

"The general principles of the religious societies

of knighthood fitted themselves to the times like

the chain-mail, which was flexible to all the mo

tions of the body." Changed conditions demand a

revision of method, if not of spirit. However, it is

well to consider that institutions which in their

sourcing possessed universal and time-lasting

principles of morality, humanitarianism, and en

nobling virtues—such as were incorporated into

the fabric of the Order of St. John—cannot in

differently depart and drift therefrom without

being blighted with the foul stigma of degeneracy.

PREFATORY 7

Then, also, it is quite possible for officials to in

cessantly and loudly laud the heroism, unselfish

zeal, and nobleness of an institution's founders,

while they themselves as members do but play

the puritanical role. It is folly, yes, brazen

presumption, to maintain that the virtuous lives

and deeds of an institution's founders is evidence

of the continued purity of the institution.

If . individual men, throughout each passing

century, were imbued with the same mind—like

unto beavers and bees—such might reasonably be,

but the thoughts of men change with the years.

Only measurably does the warp and woof of an

institution mould and temper its members. There

ever exist individual differences and dispositions,

some good, true, and of sterling worth, others

ever tending to weed-croppings and unjust con

duct. With the proffering of this philosophic

sheaf, the author of this treatise will endeavor to

set before the reader's mind a historic review of

the amazing deeds, prowess, as also the motives

and customs of the renowned Order of St. John

of Jerusalem, of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Malta. In

America this knightly Order is professedly work

ing as a lineal descendant of the Scotch-English

Branch, constituting the Sixth Langue (language)

of the old Institution. The historic contents of

this treatise has been made possible to the

author's pen by his being privileged to study the

writings of the standard European and English

8 PREFATORY

treatises which voluminously set forth every

phase of the Order.

The task taken in hand was no light one, but

not an hour passed but what gave mental interest

to the author. Not possessing the rare publica

tions, the writer was generously supplied with the

necessary volumes by his knightly friend and well

wisher, Sir Frederic H. Willson, P.G.C., Grand

Recorder of the Order's commanderies in Massa

chusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, who at

no small expenditure of money and searchings has

secured from abroad invaluable literature. Thus

it is that this treatise contains the very cream of

authoritative statement relative to this Order,

"the venerable patriarch of European chivalry."

It is the author's conviction that quite often is

it true that some minor incident in a man's, or,

it may be, a body of men's, passing days has, like

a bubble on flowing waters, gained attention,

whereas the serviceable waters in their flowing

have slightly awakened mind interest. Thus it

is that if one would rightly appraise an institution

which serviceably functions, and for seven cen

turies did unceasingly function, among men, the

proper course to take is to enlighten the mind as

to its historic activities and, if it be possible, trace

it to its source. Of course, this will mean some

vigorous mental touring, yet the tour will be of

life lasting and mind illuminating value to the

voyager.

PREFATORY 9

As a closing prefatory word: While of ready

and charitable mind both author and reader must

in forbearance throw a generous mantle over the

many deeds of those men who in the blood-

heating moil and blows of life-contending strife

may have perpetrated deeds of apparent cruelty,

it becomes a veracious chronicler's duty not only

to pen the glory-crowning deed of chivalry but

likewise, if perpetrated, the deed that "smells to

heaven." Only thus can balanced truth be pro

perly brought into the white light of correct

understanding and survey. A reviewer of historic

incident should veto all personal bias, bigotry, and

truth-dishonoring duplicity. If it be a sorry fact

that the pains-taking reviewer clearly discovers

that there exist institutions, proud and prosper

ous, whose historic baskets contain no small

number of addled eggs, it becomes sterling hon

esty to place truth's label thereon. This has not

always been done by knowing writers, hence,

many sincere-minded people have paid a high

price for such institutional commodity as has been

wholly worthless. However this may be, the

illustrious Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of

Rhodes, and Malta, can well afford to submit to

the investigator's closest inspection, today as of

yesterday.

CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I JERUSALEM IN AFFLICTION 15

II THE RISE AND SWAY OF MONASTIC OR

DERS 30

III THE "LOCUST" SCOURGE OF MOHAMMED 44

IV HOW THE HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN

THE ALMONER BECAME THE KNIGHTS

HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN THE BAP

TIST 63

V THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM 91

VI THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSA

LEM IN STIRRING CONFLICTS 114

VII THE CRUSADE OF EUROPE'S KINGS, AND

THE VICTORIOUS DELD7ERANCE OF

ACRE 137

VIII THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN AT CYPRUS

AND RHODES 170

DC THE KNIGHTS OF THE ORDER OF ST. JOHN

AS THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA 202

X THE SDXTH LANGUE OF ENGLAND, SCOT

LAND, AND IRELAND; ITS DISSOLUTION

AND RESUSCITATION: AS ALSO A RE

VIEW OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE

ORDER IN AMERICA 234

ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

SIR W. HENRY LANNIN Frontispiece

MAP OP THE MOVEMENTS OP THE KNIGHTS

HOSPITALLERS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN

SEA, 1291-1798 67

GERARD, REGENT OP THE HOSPITALLERS OF

ST. JOHN 70

A GROUP OF WAR WEAPONS 81

A GROUP OF SHAFTED WAR WEAPONS .... 87

RAYMOND DU PUIS, FIRST GRAND-MASTER OF

THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN 104

THE ISLAND OF CYPRUS 172

THE WALLS OF RHODES 192

DE LISLE ADAM, LAST GRAND-MASTER OF

RHODES 198

THE HARBOR OF MALTA 210

MARSAMUSCETTO HARBOR, MALTA 215

STRADA SAN GIOVANNI, VALLETTA 221

JEAN DE LA VALETTE, GRAND-MASTER AT

MALTA 224

MALTA—THE OLD CITY GATES 230

THE SCOTTISH WARRANT 249

A HISTORY OF

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD

"Truth comes to us from the past, as gold is washed

down from the mountains of Sierra Nevada, in minute

but precious particles, and intermixed with infinite

alloy, the debris of centuries."—Bovee.

CHAPTER I

JERUSALEM IN AFFLICTION

"Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time."

THERE is both mind and spirit inspiration in

familiarizing our minds with the earnest life

deeds of noble-hearted men.

Intensely interesting to the student of bygone

times is the remarkable and long-continued his

tory of those brave, chivalric, and religious men

who for centuries opposed the cruel power of the

Crescent by the Cross of the Order of St. John

of Jerusalem, of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Malta.

It was the great and godly Gentile apostle Paul

who declared, "It is good to be zealously affected

in a good thing." To thus become zealous, of

necessity a man must equip his mind with a

proper knowledge of that which constitutes the

"good thing."

Confessedly, the author will bring to the read

er's attention little more than the fringe of the

robe of historic weaving, for as has been very

nicely said: "Truth comes to us from the past, as

gold is washed down from the mountains of Sierra

Nevada, in minute but precious particles, and

15

16 A HISTORY OF

intermixed with infinite alloy, the debris of cen

turies."

Thus it becomes an edifying writer, who prefers

to pen truth, rather than mind-beclouding legend,

to carefully sieve out the gold from the mass of

alloy. It has been the author's studious endeavor

to do this, hence, with a proper degree of confi

dence he maintains the hope that the interesting

facts outlined may be to the reader's mind illum

ination and spiritual benefit.

No city that has been upreared by the toils of

men has had such a history as the city of Jeru

salem. This famous city has been rebuilt from

out of ruinous heaps no less than eight times.

It has suffered the terrible horrors of twenty-eight

sieges. Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Grecians,

Romans, Arabians, Turkomans, and, lastly, Euro

peans, have each in their sword-unsheathed-turn

besieged its walls, and appallingly shed blood

upon its streets.

A brief word as to the city's geographical loca

tion: Located in the country of Palestine, it rests

on a mountain crest some thirty-two miles inland

from the Mediterranean Sea at an elevation of

2581 feet, while Jordan River eastward eighteen

miles, courses more than 3000 feet lower than the

city.

Nineteen hundred years before the Christian

Era began, a priestly king, by name, Melchisedec,

resided in a city called Salem (the City of Peace) ,

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 17

where Jerusalem stands. While the Hebrew peo

ple were residing 400 years in Egypt, prior to the

lifetime of Moses, Salem fell into the possession

of the Jebusites, who were Canaanite idolators.

When the Israelites entered Canaan under

Joshua's leadership, though they made extensive

conquest, yet they did not storm the mountain-

fortressed city of Jebus. Four hundred years

afterward, David, the illustrious son of Jesse,

came to be king of Israel's twelve tribes. Though

poet and musician, he was pre-eminently a bold

and brave warrior. With his soldiery he valiantly

stormed the strong fortress of Jebus, and pos

sessed it in the name of Jehovah. David moved

his royal court here, and uniting the original name

Salem with Jebus, called the place Jerusalem.

What made Jerusalem especially known as

"The Holy City," was the fact that David caused

the sacred Ark of Jehovah's covenant to be de

posited therein. This Ark, by Jehovah's com

mand, was made by the Israelites while traversing

the Wilderness of Arabia under the leadership of

Moses. David's wise, princely son Solomon, at

the dying request of his distinguished father,

erected a beautiful temple to Jehovah in Jeru

salem. Millenniums of years had passed from

Adam's day, and yet this was the first temple built

and dedicated to the worship of Jehovah.

All was peace and comfort throughout Solo

mon's reign. There was no enemy to conquer,

18 A HISTORY OF

nor was there need of moneyed expenditure for

warlike preparation. Scripturally it is recorded

of this delightful time of peace,—"And Judah and

Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and

fig tree, from Dan to Beersheba, all the days of

Solomon." Righteousness exalted Jerusalem; sin

brought humiliation and terrible woe.

Towards the close of Solomon's luxurious reign,

he became in much a libertine. His plurality of

wives, many of them heathen in belief, fatally led

him astray. Ten of the twelve tribes revolted

after his death, and winds of trouble blew.

Egypt's heathen king took advantage of the

weakened throne of Jerusalem, entered the city

with an army, and despoiled even the temple of

its immense treasures. How humiliating!

Some 250 years afterward Assyria's fierce mon

arch with a vast army besieged Jerusalem, took

it, and carried its king a captive into Babylon.

Some years afterward the Egyptian king again

marched against the city, and imposed a heavy

tribute upon the Jews. Years passed. At last

Babylon's monarch marched a great host against

this mountain city. It was doomed to be de

stroyed by the heathen host. Its king, Zedekiah,

was led in chains to Babylon, and there slain.

Thousands of Jews were enslaved. This destruc

tive conquest occurred B.C. 589. The Jews hung

their harps upon the willows by the waters of

Babylon's river, and wept when they remembered

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 19

Jerusalem. Babylon's great capital city falling

into the grasp of the Persians toward the close of

the sixth century before the Christian Era, the

captive Jews were granted permission by King

Cyrus to return to Palestine and rebuild Jeru

salem.

This they did, and also in the course of some

years re-erected the holy temple. Again were the

Jews a nation, though tributary. Time rolled on

ward. The marvelous warriors of Macedonia,

under the intrepid and skilled generalship of

Alexander, surnamed "the Great," swept like a

swift leopard, ravening for prey, into Asia. The

unnumbered hosts of loose-living Asiatics were

overpowered, and lastly, the Jews' capital was

compelled to open its mighty gates to the world's

conqueror.

Alexander suddenly being stricken by death, his

extensive empire fell into the power of his four

chief generals. The general who ruled Syria and

Egypt, did not respect Jerusalem, hence, by the

basest strategy he gained an entrance, stripped it

of its valuables, and led many of its citizens cap

tive into Egypt.

Again, B.C. 200, the heathen king of Syria be

sieged Jerusalem, possessed it, and, in the most

abominable manner, polluted Jehovah's holy tem

ple. He sacrificed swine on the sacred altar to

his god, Zeus.

A noble Hebrew family of patriotic men, the

20 A HISTORY OF

Macabees, sternly arose as the punishers of the

Syrian marauder. By almost superhuman energy

the brave warrior Jews delivered Jerusalem from

the villain's hand of blood and debauchery.

Again for a brief period of years did a Hebrew

king sit enthroned in Jerusalem.

At this epoch, Rome's iron legions were con

quering the world's nations. Pompey, a famous

general, was subduing, and bringing tributary to

Caesar, the Asiatic peoples. He conquered Syria,

then marched into Palestine.

Jerusalem fell into his power. Pompey re

spected the holy temple, and left it unplundered,

yet he caused to have the city walls broken. Thus

in B.C. 63, Jerusalem became a tributary city to

imperial Caesar.

Herod, an Arabian, was raised by Julius Caesar,

B.C. 43, to be Procurator over Judea and Jeru

salem.

He it was who thought to murder the holy child

Jesus, born in the village of Bethlehem. But

Herod could not accomplish the demoniacal deed.

We have swept swiftly down nineteen centuries

to an amazing, divinely significant event—the

birth of earth's Redeemer and Saviour, Jesus the

Christ.

How closely the history of old Jerusalem was

interwoven into the terrible web of earth's crim

soned conflicts!

Historically, the writer's endeavor will be to set

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 21

forth the startling fact that this sacred mountain

city has throughout later centuries continued to

be the war-inflicted city, and shall be to the close

of the Gentile times. Yet there is predictive hope

for battle-scarred Jerusalem. Let us continue our

steppings on history's pathway.

The "Babe of Bethlehem" grew to manhood,

and ever loved Jerusalem. Seated on Mt. Olivet,

as he viewed the beautiful city of David, the

Sacred Records tell us that he wept, and breaking

into vocal lamentation, exclaimed, "O Jerusalem,

Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and

stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often

would I have gathered thy children together, even

as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,

and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto

you desolate."

Full of self-exalting pride and jealousies, the

Jewish officials of Jerusalem arrested and had

cruelly crucified the Son of God in A.D. 34.

Jerusalem had become a veritable hot-bed of

seditious and political plottings. At last, rebellion

ripened into bloody revolt against Csesar's laws.

Vespasian, an eminent Roman general, and Titus,

his warrior son, moved their iron legions to Jeru

salem's overthrow. The Jewish citizens were

closely beleaguered within their strong-walled

city.

Catapults and enormous battering rams were

brought into play against the city's mighty walls.

22 A HISTORY OF

On July 15th, A.D. 70, the Roman soldiery entered

in merciless fury, and an appalling slaughter en

sued. Historians affirm that a million Jews per

ished with the fall of Jerusalem. The magnificent

temple, the marvel of the world, was utterly de

stroyed. Not a stone was left in its walls. This

awful overthrow was declared by Titus to be a

divine judgment, as it certainly was. How re

markable it was that the Romans destroyed it in

the same month and the same day of the month,

July 15, as had the Babylonians centuries before !

For years afterward it appeared as if the lev

elled city was doomed to time-lasting desolation.

But not so. In A.D. 117, Rome's Caesar, Adrian,

conceived the plan to erect a Roman city on its

stone ruins. This was done, and he named the

new city, JSlius. But no Jew was allowed to come

within certain prescribed leagues of the city for

nearly 400 years.

From an ancient village of mud huts, upreared

on the banks of the Italian river Tiber, Rome in

the passing centuries had become, at the epoch

of Jerusalem's destruction, a mighty city of sur

passingly grand palaces of marble^

The ever-vanquishing legions of the Romans,

under famous generals, had conquered earth's

nations. Even insular Britain became tributary

to the imperial Caesars. The wild sons of Ishmael,

of Arabia's deserts, alone retained their indepen

dence. Rome's treasury was thus kept full, while

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 23

the empire's marine merchantmen swept the great

sea, and poured abundance of food stuffs into the

imperial city, supplying all citizen freedmen gra

tuitously. Immorality, like a hideous unclean

beast, devoured citizen virtue. The very religion

of the Romans was an engine to the increasing

growth of prostitution and impurity of life.

From Octavius Augustus, the first crowned

Ca?sar, B.C. 25, there reigned no less than forty-

two Caesars in the passing of three and a half

centuries. Many of the list were poisoned, some

stabbed to death, others were compelled to take

their own lives, like luxurious Nero. Still, there

were a few Caesars whose reigns were sagacious

and virtuous. Both Vespasian and Titus, his son,

were noble exceptions to the venal rule. Titus

ruled as Caesar but three years. Doing good was

with him a passion. If, perchance, a day passed

in which he considered he had done nothing of

worth, he would sorrowfully exclaim, "Perdidi

Diem!" (I have lost a day.) This sentiment has

come down to us in the lines:

"Count that day lost, whose low descending sun

Views at thy hand no worthy action done."

In this emperor's first year of reign, A.D. 79,

the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii were

buried beneath the ashes and lava of Vesuvius.

But time and topic forbid my dwelling on

Caesar's history. We must hasten onwards.

24 A HISTORY OF

From the missionary days of Christ's intrepid

apostles, the soul-converting truths of Christian

ity, in quiet power, ceaselessly filtered throughout

the extensive empire of Rome. Multiplied engines

and inhuman modes of torture, from century to

century devised against Christ's servants, but

added to the growing church of Christ. The

Gentile nations had their enriched temples of

marble in every city; yet what -is not of truth in

evitably ends in rot and ruin. This is the logic of

history, in civil affairs as also in the realm of

religion. The dragon of Paganism vainly fought

to break the sword of holy truth in the possession

of the soldiers of the Cross.

The forty-second Caesar of Rome, Constantine

the Great, professed the Christian faith in A.D.

325.

As regards Constantine's spirit and character,

as also his religious status, much could be set

before the reader which, in the light of historic

truth, would evidence his unworthiness to be con

sidered a Christian. For example, he promised

his sister, Constantia, the wife of Licinius, to

spare her husband's life, then surreptitiously

caused him to be killed. He caused his eldest son,

Crispus, to be banished from Rome, and then had

him murdered. His own wife, Fausta, because

of a rumor as to her infidelity, was inhumanly

suffocated to death by the emperor's command.

Prom the highest authority we are told "he was

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 25

at best only half heathen, half Christian, who

could seek to combine the worship of Christ with

the worship of Apollo, having the name of the

one and the figure of the other impressed on his

coins." Sir Knights of Malta, at least those who

are historically enlightened, do not revere the

memory of Constantine, yet as an Order, pro

fessedly Christian, it recognizes the spiritual

worth of the militant phrase, viz., "In Hoc Signo

Vinces."

We are told that, the night before the decisive

battle of "Milvian Bridge" was fought between

the Roman legions under Constantine on the one

hand and the more numerous legions of Licinius

on the other, Constantine beheld in the vault of

heaven a flaming red cross, and above it the

gleaming words, "IN HOC SIGNO VINCES." The

words in English read, "By this thou shalt

conquer."

The famous Caesar gazed in devout amazement,

and resolved upon a course of action. He forth

with caused to have made a labarum, consisting

of a long gilded spear, crossed at the top by a bar

from which hung a square purple cloth. At the

upper extremity of the spear was fixed a golden

wreath, encircling the sacred monogram, formed

of the first two letters of the name of Christ.

The ensuing sanguinary battle was fought, and

the legions of Constantine were victorious.

Constantine, as was quite in keeping with his

26 A HISTORY OF

Christian profession of faith, became heartily in

terested in those sacred places where Christ lived

and where his holy life was sacrificed. He it was

who caused that the Roman-built city on Mount

Zion should be henceforth called by the Davidic

name, Jerusalem. Much like the mythological

bird of Egypt, the Phenix, which was believed to

come forth out of the desert of Arabia every 500

years, fly to the sacred city of Heliopolis, and

there be consumed on the altar of Egypt's gods,

rising again from its ashes, young and beautiful,

—thus did Jerusalem, in concrete reality, rise

rejuvenated after centuries of silence and desola

tion out of ashes and ruin.

Helena, the aged mother of Constantine, had

joyfully accepted the holy faith of Christ, and

wished not to die until her eyes had gazed upon

the sacred places of Christ's earthly ministry.

Though weighted with years, she made the pil

grimage to Jerusalem. Tradition says she caused

careful search to be made for the cross upon

which Christ was crucified, and found it. This

story we may well doubt, for 300 years of sword

and fire had ensued. However, if credulous, relic-

revering Europeans imagine that the pieces of

wood and bone deposited in their religious temples

have virtue in them, we care not either to protest

or grumble.

When the emperor Adrian, in A.D. 117, upreared

the city of ^iElius, he built a temple to Rome's god,

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 27

Jupiter, on the site where had stood Jehovah's

temple. Constantine caused its demolition, and

erected on the site of Christ's sepulchre a church

known as "The Holy Sepulchre."

In every clime, in every revolving age, men and

women are governed in mind and conduct by

custom. Some personage or some society has felt

impelled to do something, and, lo, very soon, like

a flock of sheep following a bell-wether leader,

all are spirit-impelled to do the same thing. This,

too, is the logic of all history. As has been de

clared in rhyme,—

"Man yields to custom, as he bows to fate,

In all things ruled—mind, body, and estate."

Thus it transpired that after the aged mother

of the Csesar pilgrimaged to Jerusalem, from

every part of the great empire, especially from

Europe, devout-minded Christians wished not to

die without visiting as pilgrims the spot where

Christ suffered for mankind's transgressions.

The clergy fully acquiesced in such a devout

desire, and were ever ready to pronounce a bene

diction upon all who took up the pilgrim's staff,

and especially upon those who, ere they departed

on the arduous and perilous journey, placed to

the credit of the clergy the keeping or disposition

of their earthly estates. Thus it was that pilgrim

aging greatly added to the increasing wealth of

the Church; and in exact ratio the temporal en

28 A HISTORY OF

richment of the Church increased the power and

authority of the clergy. The leading bishops

could no longer say in the words of the apostle

Peter, "Silver and gold have I none."

The European peoples, deeply plunged in super

stition, accepted the Empire's change of religion

as a matter of political expediency. Time-serving

prelates arose to fleece the sheep of Christ, not

to lead them by still waters and in truth's green

pastures.

Time rolled its resistless wheels onward.

Julian, the nephew of Constantine, came to be

Caesar in A.D. 361. He was schooled in philoso

phy, and hated Christianity, that is to say, the

Christianity of the times. As Caesar he tore from

the Church all temples of the old religion, and

rededicated them to the gods. Christians were

thrown out of all offices. Christ had declared that

the Jewish temple would not only be destroyed,

but its sacrificial ceremonies would come to a

time-lasting close.

To contradict this, so we are told by Julian's

enemies, though we may well doubt this to have

been the Emperor's motive or desire, he gave or

ders to all Jews to begin the rebuilding of their

temple in Jerusalem. Great was the rejoicing of

the Jews. Prodigious preparations were begun,

but when the army of laborers were removing the

piles of ruins, explosive fires flamed suddenly up

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 29

and drove the workmen away from the sacred

spot. Julian's project utterly failed.

In a sanguinary battle with a Persian army, this

apostate Csesar was pierced by a javelin. Tearing

the missile from his mortal wound, history de

clares him to have exclaimed,—"O Galilean, thou

hast conquered!" Of course, you need not be

told that it was Jesus Christ whom he meant,

as Jesus had been reared in Galilee. As none but

endeared friends were near the youthful Emper

or's person through his brief agony, we have

proper grounds for doubting his having spoken

these words.

CHAPTER H

THE RISE AND SWAY OF MONASTIC ORDERS

"When the devil was sick

The devil a monk would be;

When the devil was well,

The devil a monk was he."

THE hey-day of the heavenly teachings of the

unselfish Nazarene, of Jesus the Christ,

compassed the years of the earth life of his dis

ciples, the twelve Apostles, and the years of their

direct successors. In other words, the first and

second centuries of our Era were pre-eminently

the years of truth propagation, with Spirit power

accompanying the Gospel message to men. It

was in those years that our Anglo-Saxon forbears

became enlightened and instructed in the know

ledge of divine truth. Paul of Tarsus, Luke, the

physician, as also the apostle, Andrew, it is be

lieved, preached in Britain. Julius Caesar, the

noble Roman, some years prior to his elevation

to the Consulate, had led his legionaries into

Britain, subjugating the tribes to the laws of the

Empire of Rome. However, a numerous body of

men and women openly refused to recognize the

great Roman's subjugating mandate, and fled to

the rocky fastnesses of what is known as Wales,

thus preserving to our day many of the unique

30

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 31

customs, as also language, of the pre-Christian

Angles. Who has not heard of the fearless

Caracticus, and the brave and militant Boadicea,

who in storm and stress led their poorly armed

warriors against the ironic might of Caesar's

legions, desperately striving to beat back the

almost invincible host of trained soldiery? The

soldiery of Rome never crossed the sea to make

conquest in Ireland to the west, known to the

Romans as Hibernia, the Green Isle. Alas! the

unalloyed Church of the divine Master, like unto

its Head, was destined to behold the uprising of

men, astutely politic, indeed, yet wholly devoid of

the spirit of its Founder, who in self-seeking

professed and secured leadership, despoiling the

fold of its precious heritage, the power and free

dom of the Spirit of truth. In his writings Paul

penned a prediction as to this infamy manifesting

after his death. He referred to such men as

"grievous wolves."

It is well for the reader to know that profound

wisdom and learning was possessed by various

templed schools throughout eastern nations in

those times. Chaldean, Egyptian, Persian, and

Grecian magi, or masters, had throughout the

speeding centuries probed deeply and tirelessly to

learn all cosmic laws, as also the why and where

fore of universal things. Thus gleaning many

pearls of wisdom they were competent to perform

amazing enactments which were miraculous to

32 A HISTORY OF

the minds of the unlearned. This knowing of Na

ture laws and forces was no evil, neither was it

any possession of the Satan of superstition, as

shallow-minded religionists have averred. Truly,

ignorance of the warp and woof of the garmenting

of Deity, that is, of Nature's laws, is more the pro

duct of the power of darkness than aught else

under the sun. It is of moment to consider the

truth of this ere the hurtling dart of condemnatory

invective be thrown at those who in every way

were the peers of their detractors. In this con

nection it comes not amiss to bring to the reader's

attention ere passing that within the temples of

pre-Christian centuries, which in their architec

tural moulding, as also furnishings, all was

patterned to conform to things celestial. In them

the various powers of Nature were tabulated, and

typed by terrestrial forms or things which in their

living nature and varied dispositions shadowed the

invisible powers of superearthly realities. To the

unenlightened, alas, these material replicas were

things not only sacred in themselves, but to be

worshipped as gods. While this was a fatal error,

and as such, evil, as it led to much abominable

folly and increased mental stupidity, those of

to-day who choose to live in "glass houses" of

ignorant thought do not increase in true wisdom

by stone-throwing at the "gods" which neither

they nor their forbears correctly appraised.

Moreover, how unspeakably inconsistent it was

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 33

in those who in solemn Councils condemned as

of Satan's invention and property all which they

termed, Heathenism, and to prove their zeal and

detestation desecrated and despoiled all Gentile

temples, and after thus doing, as time flowed on

ward, in very many ways brought into their own

places of worship the like furnishings, as also

patterned ceremonial rites which, beyond all suc

cessful contradiction, were originated and used in

Gentile temples! Of course the unlettered re

ligious masses were not enlightened so as to sense

properly the inconsistency of it all, and it may

have been that the introduction of the ancient

religion's typical furnishments in Christian tem

ples filled a want in the minds of the millions

whose fore-parents worshiped in view of these

very things.

The author has chosen to briefly touch upon

this phase of truth in history so that he may the

more properly set forth the root source of many

things which in our times are recognized and as

sented to as comprehending religion's massive and

polyglot tree. Verily, it is men's thoughts as to

things earthly which, in the last analysis, weigh

good or evil. The things possess no evil in them

selves. This is philosophically true, yet erratic,

impulsive, and frequently fanatic men and women

act as if their imagined devil was in reality the

thing they hated. The writer of this historic

sketch is in no ready mind to dispute the falsity

34 A HISTORY OF

or correctness of such mental picturing. Be it

remarked, however completely furnished, in an

exoteric aspect, and however sense entrancing did

the professed Church of the homeless Nazarene

become, by its rulers thus purloining—this term is

properly used—from religion's predecessors, the

reader should know that the spirituality of primi

tive Christians emasculated their minds of all

thought as to any living need of gorgeous and

extravagant ceremonials. The inner light of

truth, as also the demonstration of the Spirit,

fully satisfied. Their God and Father was an

ever-present Spirit, and their divine Teacher did

not instruct them to look toward and glory in

Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Judea, Arabia, or Rome,

as repositories of their Father's treasury of wis

dom and blessing. Not at all. They understood

differently, for after their Teacher's cruel murder,

Peter declared, "I perceive that God is no re-

spector of persons, for in every nation he that

feareth (reverences) him and worketh righteous

ness is accepted with him."

After Constantine was diademed imperial

Caesar, the better to centralize his august person

in the midst of his tribute-paying nations, as also,

as some historians have set forth, to remove from

the luxurious city which the bedeviled Caesars,

his predecessors, had in every infamous manner

besmirched, he chose to upbuild and wondrously

embellish the old city of Byzantium, situated on

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 35

the shores of the Bosphorus, the deep-channeled

strait which separates Europe and Asia. He gave

his new city his own name, Constantinople; that

is, the City of Constantine. Throughout this

Caesar's reign, both the social standing, as, also,

in a very sententious aspect, the policy, of the

Church underwent a change. The change was

material, not spiritual. The very word spiritual

took on, as years passed, an altogether different

meaning. What was its churchly meaning?

Naught else than that the Christian clergy con

stituted in their official persons divinely delegated

authority among all and over all men ; that, hence,

the Church in essence and action comprehended

the voice of the clergy. Thus spirituality was

sourced in church officials, and to be in obedient

accord with ecclesiastic power was to be spirit

ually disposed; to be opposed thereto was judged

to be heretical.

Now to those who read the pure teachings of

the primitive pupils of the Christ, the term

spiritual has an altogether different meaning.

Thus, Jesus declared, "When he the Spirit of truth

is come, he will guide you into all truth." The

Spirit came and imbued them on the day of Pente

cost in Jerusalem, not in Rome. And the beloved

John wrote, "Ye need not that any man teach you

for ye are all taught of God."

Alas! the millions of scattered people in Con-

stantine's day were neither booked in the Greek

3G A HISTORY OF

or Roman languages, hence the original Greek

writings of the Apostles, nor the Latin translation

of the Bible by the scholar, Jerome, of the third

century, could be studied by them as a sure pre

ventive against the mind-beclouding superstitions

of the times. The inward light in the personal

soul was soon displaced for the external efful

gence of a religion of show and discipline in

accord with the demands of the Church. Still,

beneath all formalisms and cold parade, however

popular they be, there inheres in the religious soul

a deep vein of unspoken piety as also a strong

desire to experience more consciously the true

spiritual power. The more worldly external re

ligionists become, and the stronger among men

the sirocco winds of sensuousness blow, the

keener are the longings in many to divorce their

persons therefrom. This, then, is the root reason

for the existence of Monasticism among the na

tions. By no means was John the Baptiser the

first ascetic, for such a wilderness course of

living was inaugurated centuries ere his life-time.

There inheres in such a mode of living something

far other than, as some may think, mental de

lusion. The fact that many men have preferred

such a mode of living evidences that in social

environment there is the matter-worshiping pull

which stoutly tends to insulate and stultify the

hidden springs of man's soul. But, then, while

monasteries, hermitages, nunneries, sodalities,

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 37

divorce from worldly associations, each member

carries with him, or her, his own shade, or if the

reader prefers the term, devil. Thus it was that

this world-renouncing passion led multitudes of

men to dwell in isolated localities from year to

year, and in the humblest manner sustain life in

their bodies. These confraternities however, be

ing recognized by the ruling classes, and lands

as also varied material gifts being from time to

time given them, naturally awakened in their

souls the devil of cupidity, as also affected, more

or less, their mode of living, and fostered indo-

lency of behaviour. With increased largesses

their membership increased, much as a highly

furnished and well provisioned sanitarium of

today attracts to it an increasing number of com

fort-loving "patients." In the end this catering

to the easy mode of life became an actual peril,

a menace to social stability. When King Henry

VIII of England quarrelled with the Church Pontiff,

he found no less than six hundred monastic insti

tutions in his island realm, each a drain on the

work-a-day population. The stern king did not

hesitate to confiscate their landed estates to his

own regal disposition, and forthwith drove them

from his realm. He, true to his nature, "took the

bull by its horns," and despatched it. As to the

justice of the ensoured monarch's conduct in the

case, it is not the writer's prerogative to declare.

However, if the whole truth was bared it need not

38 A HISTORY OF

be surprising to find the king to have been innocu-

lated with the same virus as the indolent monks,

that is, with greed. Still, as a monarch, had he so

willed, he could the more serviceably use the great

properties.

As it is of an Order, both monastic and militant,

which impelled to the writing of this treatise, it

will not be amiss to inform the reader that nearly

700 years prior to the founding of the Hospitallers

of St. John, in 370 A.D., or thereabout, an Order

was founded in Cesarea, Palestine, by St. Basil,

known as the Order of St. Lazarus. It was a

hospital for the housing and care of men stricken

with the dread disease, leprosy. At its founding

none but lepers comprised its membership. In

fact a constitutional law of the Order made it

impossible for any man who was not a leper to

become its Grand Master. This old Order had its

Lazaretts in many localities, and though we are

not told it functioned in Jerusalem, yet it was

famously known by all nations, and was the

worthy recipient of continued gifts from far and

near. True, it was in no sense a knighthood Order,

until after the Hospitallers in the eleventh century

became, by pontifical right and suffrage, re

modelled as such, as further on it shall be shown.

After Constantine forsook Rome by establishing

his throne in Constantinople about 325 A.D., na

turally enough, the head bishop (patriarch) over

the eastern Greek-tongued churches, at the Em

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 39

peror's will, likewise made the fair city his abiding

seat, and, moreover, took on greatness with the

capital's growth and increasing regality. Con-

stantine attested his sincere interest in religion

by erecting what was the finest and grandest

church edifice upon earth in his royal city. He

gave it as name, St. Sophia, that is, the Church of

Divine Wisdom.

From their humble beginnings the Eastern

churches carried on their ennobling work in the

Greek language, the language of culture and

philosophy, while the Western churches used the

Latin tongue of the Caesars. This linguistic differ

ence was, in a measureable degree, responsible for

church dissentions and divisional antipathies be

tween the east and west of Christendom, so called.

The old Roman capital, it is easy to believe, re

ceived a staggering blow when Caesar moved

therefrom. However, this condition did not long

continue, for subsequent to Constantine's death a

Caesar gave imperial ruleship ere he died to his

sons, Valentinian and Valens. To the former was

given all western, that is, European, dominion,

to the latter all eastern sovereignty. Shortly after

this division of the vast empire of the Caesars a

hotly contested dispute arose between the two

metropolitan Patriarchs of Rome and Constanti

nople. It appears that he of Constantine's city

assumed the sounding title, "Universal Bishop."

Bishop Gregory of Rome stoutly opposed the as

40 A HISTORY OF

sumption, and by letter accused his proud brother

Christian of pulling Antichrist's oar. The upshot

of the dissention, as time winged by, was that by

Caesar's assistance Rome's bishop won out and

assumed the title.

In those title-squabbling years the healthy

blooded and strong armed barbarians from the

forest homes of northern Europe swept south

ward, sternly inflexible in purpose to kill and flay

the old "Wolf of the Tiber," Caesar's Rome. Thus

it transpired that in 476 A.D., the Caesar of the

West, Romulus Augustulus, was compelled t)o

bow his head to uncrowning at the stern hand of

the barbarian chieftain, Odoacer the Goth.

The clerical power of the Bishop of Rome was

by no means nullified by the overturning of

Caesar's throne. By the superstitious barbarians

the Bishop in his robings of glory was freely

accepted as Heaven's vicegerent, and, of course,

it was the astute policy of the church prelate to

have them so consider him. While the claim duly

placed the bishop more securely in his influential

seat, giving him what went for spiritual preroga

tive, it undoubtedly was the Eastern Church which

preserved and fostered mental culture, for after

Caesar's uncrowning there fell over Europe a pall

of ignorance and mental inertness, properly

termed "The Dark Ages." The scattered clergy,

as also their religion's devotees, became more and

more steeped in ignorance while all manner of

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 41

religious rites and superstition's bric-a-brac were

consecrated as part and parcel of Catholicism. A

word in passing as to this term: the word is wholly

Greek in composition, yet, strangely enough, it has

been adopted and usurped by the Latin Church.

What other is this but literary purloining?

Doubtless the reader has heard that it was in

the Christian monastic institutions that the learn

ing of by-gone centuries was wisely appraised

and preserved throughout the dark barbaric cen

turies. This, admittedly, is a fact, and for no

other cause or virtue these institutions, in this

valued regard, have earned honorable recognition.

Roman churchmen of today do boastfully make

much of this historic fact, taking, of course, all

honor to their institution, but they must know

that monks, hermits, and ascetics, were a far

different species of religious men, in every mea

surement superior men to their pompous, bauble-

garnished Church rulers. Not only so, they must

know that not so much in the Latin language,

and its European offshoots, were the writings of

the past enstored, but in the Greek language. To

the Latins, at least to ninety-nine per cent of

them, the Greek tongue was dead letter, as much

so as the hieroglyphic writings of old Egypt. True

it was that not all Latins became mildewed ignor

amuses, yet the enlightenment of the tribal

masses of Europe was in no way a passion of the

Church officials. Enough for the laboring millions

42 A HISTORY OF

if they unquestioningly revered and obeyed as

flocks their bellwether overlords. But now the

reader's attention is called to such relevant matter

as may be of greater interest to him.

As the old imperial city of Rome was respected,

if not loved, by the peoples of earth, and its name

was held as a synonym for power, ruleship, juris

prudence, and material riches, at the passing of

its line of Caesars all this appraised valuation fell

into the possession of the man who professed to

sit in "Peter's Chair" of spiritual prerogative. As

to it being an indubitable historic fact that the

apostle Peter founded the bishopric of Rome, or

dwelt in Caesar's city on the Tiber, was not the

scanned question of those easy-believing times

of which we write. There indeed was not a scrap

of writing from Peter's hand—although he wrote

two epistolary letters to the scattered Christians

—to attest the very important matter that Rome

was his universal seat of spiritual overseeing.

On the other hand, however, there exists incon

testable proof in the New Testament writings

that the apostle Paul resided as a State prisoner

in Rome in the reign of Nero, the luxurious

pervert. In truth, Paul's penned letter to his

youthful co-missionary, Timothy, plainly declares

that, incarcerated as he was in Mamertine dun

geon, "only Luke is with me," while his brethren,

Demas and Crescens, had left him. Really, then,

if Peter then dwelt in Rome as Pontiff over all

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 43

church societies, how indeed could Paul remain

oblivious to the fact? Moreover, in the last analy

sis, if Peter lived not therein as universal bishop,

it surely follows that the Church of Rome's claim

to the professed "Chair of Peter" is based on

falsehood. Leaving this statement with the read

er, it will be mind illuminating to trace in review-

ment another telling historic incident ere the

chapter be closed.

All historic students who have read to instruc

tion and truth enlightenment are fully aware that

after Caesar's loss of sovereignty there mysteri

ously appeared in the Roman bishop's hand an

official document, duly inscribed and imperially

signatured, professedly by the great emperor,

Constantine, in which it was set forth that the

emperor decreed as a sovereign gift to Rome's

bishop the Italian provinces, together with the

city of Rome. This document was a forgery, yet

for a thousand years it was referred to as suffi

cient proof of the Pope's territorial and sovereign

rights. The dead and buried Constantine could

not prick the bubble of falsity with the sword of

truth. "The False Decretals" as a document has

been proven infamous, and even Roman writers

now confess it is wholly unworthy of honesty's

regard. But it was the stout leverage by which

the Latin Bishop gained elevation and territorial

possessions. He became a sovereign lord in this

manner.

CHAPTER III

THE "LOCUST" SCOURGE OF MOHAMMED

"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again:

The eternal years of God are hers;

But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,

And dies among his worshippers."

THE Caesars of the East continued to rule in

unbroken line from Constantinople after the

Western throne was entombed. While tribal terri

tories in Europe were being mosaiced into various

tongued nationalities, as also England o'erswept

and subjugated by the Normans, led by their re

doubtable William, the Eastern Empire—popu

larly called "The Byzantine Empire"—was a vast

polyglot of Greeks, Asiatics, Syrians, Romans,

Cyprians, Jews, Egyptians, and so forth. Inter

mixed with these citizens were ready-handed cor

sairs scouring the seas, and unnumbered entented

plunderers throughout the lands. As to the social

status of the East, a reputable writer observes,

"The Eastern Empire, though equally cursed with

a succession of slothful and feeble-minded princes,

continued to hold together for several centuries,

supported more by the memory of its departed

greatness, than by actual strength. Idle pageants

and voluptuous enjoyments emasculated the im

perial despots, who left their power to be usurped

44

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 45

by venal parasites, and their frontiers to be de

fended by hireling swords. At the beginning of

the seventh century the Euphrates was still the

Asiatic boundary of the Eastern Empire, which

stretched southward as far as the Arabian sands.

But every province was ripe for insurrection ; and

when Heraclius succeeded to the diadem, he found

the Persians masters of Syria and Palestine. It

was at this juncture, when the Roman and the

Persian were competing in mortal Strife, that the

wilds of Arabia sent forth one of those ambitious

and mentally virile men, Mohammed, whom

Providence seems to have specially appointed to

scourge nations and humble kings." It is at least

philosophical to hold the thought that this won

der-working descendant of Ishmael the son of

Abraham by the female bond-servant, Hagar, in

every earthly sense possessed as much right to

dethrone self-sacrificing monarchs and secure

real-estate thereby as they and their progenitors

had in past time. To the writer it smacks of o'er-

bearing presumption to say that any man or class

of men possess unimpeachable and permanent

right to earthly or heavenly authority and pre

rogative. Strip such aristocratic men of their

regal and clerical apparel, of their bediamonded

crowns, rings, and showy gew-gaws and baubles,

and in their nakedness we may query, in what

personal way are they distinctly superior people?

Both as to mental equipment and muscular devel

46 A HISTORY OF

opment there exist myriads of men, unknown and

unvalued socially, men without heritage, who are

their betters. And as for Church and State, which

twain has been upreared by men's hammering,

chiseling, sawing, planing, and nailing, what Voice

from out the eternal past has declared either the

one or the other to be a part and parcel of the

ever-existent universal forces? The devout-

minded poet was exactly right in declaring that

"Change and decay In all around I see."

And change is often essential to purity and physi

cal and moral health, while decay implies chemic

disintegration to other cosmic uses. It is, at least,

a change of mental diet to duly consider this

aspect of things terrestrial. Men have ever striven

to bolster up their "rights," and struggle to retain

their grasped possessions, vehemently decrying as

infamous the like conduct of other men who set

about to accomplish that which they or their pre

decessors accomplished by the sword, astute

diplomacy, or dishonest trafficking.

The Arabian's mind, as also his manner of liv

ing, it must be fully granted, was distinctly diverse

to the minds and mode of living of those whom he

and his people dethroned and destroyed. Moham

med—this word means "the Glorified"—was born

571 A.D., in the desert city of Mecca. This child,

soon after his birth, was left an orphan, and was

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 47

reared by Aboo-Taleeb, his uncle, who, as he grew,

instructed him in the shrewd art of commerce.

It is no cause for astonishment, nor for unneces

sary comment, that all western writers have

heaped invective and superlative obliquy upon the

illustrious Arab's name and memory. Largely it

was the influence of both the Latin and Greek

churches which impelled to this inveterate enmity.

Admittedly, from both a secular and religious

point of view, this man gave the professedly

Christian world a time-lasting scourging, not only

while he lived in person but at least for a full

century after his death. The scourge duration

herein mentioned, that is, about 150 years, refers

directly to the Arabian conquests, not to the

aftermath of Turkoman eruptions and other

Asiatic hordes of human butchers. No wonder

is it that modern students who read St. John's

"Apocalypse," the book, Revelation, have in

terpreted the seer's vision of the uprising of the

swarms of destructive "locusts," with stings in

their tails, as having its fulfillment in the devastat

ing on-sweep of Arabian soldiery, under the dread

banner of their intrepid Prophet and leader. A

writer of no mean distinction in referring to

Mohammed declares him to have been "the most

crafty and most successful imposter that ever

assailed the faith of Christ." Now all readers of

history may admit him to have been crafty, but

whether so in a heart evil sense is a matter of

48 A HISTORY OF

individual judgment. As to his being an imposter,

that is, one who subtly imposed upon his desert

people, as also upon millions of others, teachings

which he knew to be false—like, for example, the

False Donation of Italy to Rome's bishop—cannot

be proven by any living scholar or judge. And

moreover, that this famous man—or, infamous, if

you, reader, prefer,—"assailed the faith of Christ,"

can be properly doubted. The question which, first

of all, would have to be scripturally dealt with and

answered is: What in truth essence sums up the

faith of Christ? If, indeed, it be thoughtlessly

granted that the huge pageantry of religious

ceremonial, material crucifix worship, together

with the extensive "spiritual" authority of enrobed

ecclesiastics of the Church was "the faith of

Christ," then beyond all dispute Mohammed did

mercilessly assail all this, and, moreover, in much

won his spurs of conquest. However, leave we

this ground of bickering and surly contention, and

proceed onward. An Arab widow, named

Khadijah, possessing material riches, becoming

enamoured of the beautiful youth, Mohammed,

although she was older than he, chose him as her

husband. He, it appears, had successfully man

aged one of her commercial caravans. As to what

subsequently was enacted we read "Hitherto he

had led a voluptuous yet not disreputable life;

but, all at once, he affected to become a strict

penitent, and retired to a cave in Mount Hira, a

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 49

hill near Mecca, where, under the guise of great

austerity, he perfected the gigantic project with

which his brain was pregnant. Having brought

it to maturity, he affected to make a confidant

of his wife, by declaring to her, that, through the

ministrations of the angel Gabriel, he had been

favoured with special revelations from heaven."

Now there is biographical fact herein before the

reader, yet with it the coined spleen and invidious

bias of the writer's mind and spirit. The prudent

reader will accept the wheat of fact by sifting

from it the chaff of duplicity placed to the dis

credit of the long dead Arab leader and law-giver.

It is so easy to be a traducer of the person who

"follows not us," reading into his conduct and

spirit, in the most unscrupulous manner, the

thoughts which are the spawn of our own breed

ing relative to him. This is a very vicious but

altogether too common an evil under the sun, and

bears the fruit of surpassing trouble. Generally,

may it be said, men are not willing to "give the

devil his due," but, rather, heap to his account

much that is of their own enacted meanness.

And yet, the chronicler of the above statement

goes on to say, "Nature, if we may credit the

Arabian historians (it may be this writer disliked

much to do this) had moulded Mohammed for a

supreme station. His port was noble—his coun

tenance serene and modest—his wit docile and

ready—his manner courteous—his conversation

50 A HISTORY OF

complaisant and sweet. He was, moreover, lib

eral to profusion, endowed with keen discernment,

and possessed of the kingly faculty of placing men

in the situations for which their talents exactly

suited them." There certainly sounds no man-

demeaning note in this penned characterization.

By Mohammed's most bitter critic it must be

granted as of truth that the desert scion of Hagar

was wondrously endowed in mind, spirit, and body

to accomplish in a few years the time-lasting work

which is credited to him. Neither Alexander,

Hannibal, Charlemagne, nor Napoleon, has left

on the pages of history any accomplishment that

measures up to the work of Mohammed. No, nor

does any such measurement gleam forth from the

recorded biographies of the long list of men who

have been incumbents in "Peter's Chair." An

other point at least worthy of passing notice is

this. It has been from the East, not from the

West, that mankind's most illustrious founders

of soul-reforming thought have come; Abraham,

Zoroaster, Moses, Gutama, Pythagoras, Hermes,

Plato, Homer, Jesus the Christ, Mohammed, and

many other saintly masters of universal wisdom,

were natives of the Orient. The precious seed

sown by many of these did not harvest in material

riches or clerical pride and autocracy, to them

selves or others, but it blossomed and ripened to

mankind's soul-emancipation from the thraldom

of sordid sense passions.

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 51

In the space of twenty-three years the Prophet

had brought all the tribes of Arabia into enthusi

astic allegiance to his person, while his doctrines

were accepted by all as God's revealed will and

word. Eire passing onward in our necessary brief

review of this courageous, and in every estimate,

very wonderful man, it comes not amiss to say

that upon issuing from the cave in Mount Hira

he brought with him a very large and unique

penned manuscript which he termed "The Koran."

His unhesitating claim was that its contents were

naught other than the inspired revealments of

truth, made known by the ministry of the great

archangel, Gabriel. Coming forth, Mohammed

began to convince the citizens of the sacred city,

his wife, Khadijah, becoming his initial convert.

The primal germ expression of his teaching was,

and continues to be: "God is one; Mohammed is

his prophet." To Mohammed God was holy, just,

almighty, ever invisible, all-wise, and all images

of man's making as expressions of saints and

angels were abominations, and any degree of

reverence bestowed upon them was proof of a

degenerate religion. No human conduct was

considered so despicable to Mohammed as relig

ious veneration bestowed upon images of men

and women In churches and at shrines. Thus

can the reader understand in what distinctive re

gard Mohammed antagonized both Latin and

Greek Christianity. Is It cause for wonder that

62 A HISTORY OF

ever since his appearance he has been dubbed

"The Infidel," and his religious adherents "Infi

dels," by both Latin and Greek churchmen?

A veritable hodge-podge of irrational yet deep-

rooted superstitions made up the religious ideas

of the Arab tribes at the appearing of Mohammed.

Mecca was pre-eminently their sacred city, for

therein stood the Caaba, built as was believed by

Sheik Abraham, when he visited his bondwoman

Hagar, and his son, Ishmael. As a citizen, the

Prophet here voiced his teachings, but the pow

erful rulers were incensed at his boldness, and

soon hatched a plot to take his life. The astute

propagandist eluded them, and by night fled some

forty miles northward to the desert city, Medina,

and therein renewed his voicings. Soon his pow

erful magnetic personality won to him the entire

citizenship, for, doubtless, the Medina people had

slight reason to love the Pharisaical rulers of

Mecca. Mohammed's night flight from Mecca has

ever been known by his millions of disciples as

"The Hejira." To all Moslems it is the beginning

of their era, viz. 622 A.D.

As the Koran writings are voluminous some

have questioned the truth of Mohammed having

written all contained therein while in the cave of

Mt. Hira. However, it is now known that from

prehistoric years there were established in isolated

places of earth, apart from all social communities,

secret brotherhoods who spent their lives in study.

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 53

Such places were known only to those few men

who to the learned master, carried the marks in

their persons as being by the Spirit chosen to do

a destined work on earth. Mt. Horeb was one

of these sacred places, and Moses, the initiate of

Egypt's secret school, journeyed there, remaining

some time. Mt. Carmel was another, and Elijah,

the Hebrew prophet, frequently tarried there. If,

then, the cave of Mount Hira was one of such

places, Mohammed may have been assisted in

accomplishing the work in hand. We may well

opine that much of secret matters has ever re

mained veiled to the merely curious multitude.

At Medina we are told how that the angel

brought to the Prophet a finely-tempered sword,

commanding him to use it in the telling propaga

tion of the teachings committed to him. Unhesi

tatingly he obeyed, and he led an armed company

against his Mecca enemies. Consternation and

craven fear now possessed the rulers, as they

expected naught else than death-dealing redress

for their plotting his life. But the Prophet's pur

pose was not to avenge insult and infamy, but

rather to convert his Arab people. He voiced this

purpose to the citizens, and the people readily

embraced his teachings, and soon became zealous

and life-long propagandists, to gladly die, if need

be, for the new faith's extension.

Of all people of earth for whom the Prophet

possessed extreme dislike, even inveterate enmity,

64 A HISTORY OF

it was the Jews and the shaven-skulled monks of

the distempered Christian Church. In his military

commands to his soldiers he gave strict orders

never to strike down women and children, but

surely slay money-grasping Jews, and never in

mercy spare the lives of such indolent monks as

they contacted with in their marchings. Moham

med must have had cause for the planting of

implacable enmity in his soul for Jews and Latin

monks. No doubt he contacted with these classes

of parasitic men in his commercial journeyings

in Khadijah's caravan service, and hence, being

intuitively gifted, he rightly appraised the mind

and spirit of these men. As in the inferior realm

of creatures there exist swarms of parasitical

flies, bugs, and stinging insects, so among men

there live those unproductive species who subsist

exclusively upon the toil and sinew of other men.

These prefer that manual labors be performed by

others, while they themselves live richly off the

products of honest-minded and ready-handed

toilers. The man of observant mind and eye be

comes aware of this evil among men, and if he be

in spirit more than a selfish time-server, the fact

stirs him to oppose the outlived principle. And

in this connection it may properly be said that

any organized religion or secular institution that

in any degree caters to or remains blind-eyed to

such inequality and perversity in enactment de

serves condemning reproof. Why should any na

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 55

tion of toilers sustain and persist in allowing a

toil-shirking class, either under the guise of trade

or religion, unrighteously to grasp the ripened

fruits of honest toilers? This indeed has been

the vexed question of the ages, and remains

among men a problem unsolved, and a condition

of living which stands seriously in need of adjust

ment.

The logic of all history supports the author in

saying that had Mohammed beea but a military

genius, a leader of impassioned and infatuated

men imbued with the one thought of death-deal

ing war and conquest, his influence among men

would have terminated at his death. But this was

not the case with Arabia's Prophet, for it was his

religious teachings—grant them of wisdom or, on

the other hand, worthless—which impelled him,

as likewise his millions of co-religionists, to subju

gating conquest.

Jerusalem fell into the Moslem's grasp in A.D.

637, after having been a Roman city for 567 years.

There ensued no degradation of the Caesarian city

—the writer calls it Caesar's, for it was not Jewish

built as was the Jerusalem of former ages,—nor

serious spoliation. By world-recognized conquest

it was won by the Arabians, led by Omar, one of

Mohammed's most accomplished chieftains.

There was no glaring iniquity in imposing tribute

upon Latin citizens, and as for sobriety of be

haviour the Moslems were, in many ways, the

66 A HISTORY OF

peers of both Greeks and Latins. The Arabian

"locusts" in their subjugating conquests swarmed

eastward until they reached the famous Euphra

tes River, upon whose bank they built a splendid

city, naming it Bagdad, that is, the City of Peace.

This eastern city's site terminated their exploits

in Asiatic territory. However, the whole of Syria,

Palestine, and Egypt in northern Africa was won

by their gleaming scimitars and long spears. As

horsemen warriors they were unsurpassed by any

people. The famous city of Alexandria in Egypt,

a city of oriental culture and riches, fell into their

possession. This elegant metropolis, as the

reader may know, was founded by King Alexan

der, the illustrious Macedonian, some centuries

prior to the beginning of the Christian Era.

Onward the Arabians swept along the African

coast-line westward, taking as they went the old

city of Carthage, the renowned capital of the

Carthaginians, Hamilcar and Hannibal, the invet

erate and troublous antagonists of the earlier

Caesars. Still westward in conquesting zeal the

warriors of the Prophet galloped, until they

reached the Straits of Hercules, now known as

Gibraltar. Reaching these comparatively narrow

waters they crossed over into Spain (Hispaniola),

and speedily overran this European peninsula,

planting therein a Moorish colony of Moham

medans. They essayed to sweep northward, but

were beaten back by the soldiery of the Frankish

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 57

monarch, Charles, nicknamed "Martel," that is,

the Hammer. Thus it was that although the

Arabian conquests terminated, the filtration of

Mohammed's teachings, it appears, had converted

the minds of certain Asiatic tribes in Persia and

other countries bordering on the Euphrates.

These were Kurds in nativity, and, it is said, in

past years had worshipped a sword placed upright

in the ground.

Territorial possessions on earth have always,

even to the present hour, been the major cause of

international and tribal warrings, whether, indeed,

the holders were religious or non-religious. It is

truth to say that formal religion, however garn

ished, glorious, and worldly refined, in no degree

divorces from men's minds and hearts the love

and passion for real estate riches; in fact, its

possession is as tinder to the flame of strife and

official enmity. Thus it was that the extensive

territorial possessions of the Prophet's successors

became bones of contention between the two

families which claimed blood lineage with Mo

hammed. The Arab chieftain, Ali, had married

Fatima, the Prophet's favorite daughter, while

Abubeker, the father of Mohammed's favorite

wife, Ayesha, became his successor, that is, the

Caliph. The city of Bagdad was chosen the

capital city of the eastern territories, while the

other caliphate ruled the extensive Egyptian and

other territories from the city of Cairo. As time

58 A HISTORY OF

went by much dissention ensued between the two

caliphates. The question of superiority and

sovereign right was an intangible one and through

the centuries has continued to be the Moham

medan bone of contention. However, let not the

reader think that the Moslem problem as to

rightful succession to a seat of power was or is

exclusively a Mohammedan tangle, for it is a fact

of history that what is called "The Chair of Peter"

has been the cause of hot, hateful, and hurting

jealousies, purchasings, as also acts of infamy.

In sorry truth historians—and Papal historians

at that—record the fact that a certain claimant

of the pontifical chair who for a time sat thereon,

after his death and burial was, as a lifeless corpse,

robed in state and placed in a judgment seat, with

a jurist to plead his case, and judgment pro

nounced against him as a contumacious usurper.

After pronouncement against the dead, his right-

hand fingers were amputated and his corpse tum

bled into the Tiber. All this was inhumanly perpe

trated in the name of Christ's religion! It doubt

less is true that few there live today who are

knowing as to such terrible deeds having been

enacted, while many there are who are ready to

declare such statements heinously false. To

the latter class the writer of this treatise will refer

them to the Papal commended volume The Chair

of Peter, by Count Murphy, wherein the incident

is recorded. It was the body of Pope Formosus

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 59

upon which this inhuman act was imposed by his

successor, Stephen VI. Formosus, Bishop of

Porto, became Pope in 891 A.D., and died in 896.

He was the 110th Bishop of Rome. The historian

says of him,—"he drank no wine, that he never

tasted meat, and that he died a virgin in the 80th

year of his age." As to Pope Stephen we read,

"Stephen was driven from the see (chair) and

was thrown into a dungeon and strangled there."

Now in the annals of Mohammedanism the stu

dent will scan in vain to discover any such atro

cious deed. There indeed have been infamous

Caliphs, merciless to their enemies, but a like deed

imposed upon an official's corpse has not been

recorded.

Leaving this horrid incident of history let us

pursue the course of events which led to the

establishment of the order of Hospitallers of St.

John of Jerusalem. It may be news to the knight

ly reader to be told that two centuries and a half

prior to the founding of the Hospital of St. John

the great and good king of the Franks, Charle

magne, caused a hospital to be built in the Holy

City. As to this fact we read, "In the year 799

Jerusalem was once more in the possession of the

Christians. The Caliph Harunal Raschid, admir

ing the talents and virtues of Charlemagne, and

being willing to alleviate the sufferings of the

pilgrims, presented the emperor with the keys of

the Holy City. Charlemagne readily availed him

60 A HISTORY OF

self of the various privileges which resulted from

this invaluable gift. A hospital and library were

erected at Jerusalem, at his expense, for the use

of the Christians ; and he gave other proofs of his

liberality, although he did not visit the Holy Land

himself." It is cheering to know that this illustri

ous Frank was himself a scholar and appraised

properly the value of the dissemination of know

ledge among earth's peoples. In this, he differed

from the purpose and conduct of those who sipped

the juice of knowledge and gave the juiceless rind

to the masses of mankind. The friendliness which

existed between Charlemagne and the Moham

medan Caliph worked good-will in Palestine, for

a quaint rhymist has recorded as follows:

Christian men, both far and near,

Long afterwarde, for many a year,

Yeden their way to Jerusalem,

To the Sepulchre and to Bethlem,

And to all other pilgrimage

Withouten harm or damage.

The reader may rightly think that the years

whereof we write were stirring with ever-chang

ing events. The Mohammedan propaganda had

affected and, in a great measure, changed the

thoughts of millions of men. Rome's Europe-

reaching Church had gone to seed and vitrified

the minds of its devotees. True, there were here

and there wisdom's true sons who lived in ob

( MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 61

I

1 scurity, and who, to protect and prolong their

f lives while studying Nature's wondrous laws and

forces, penned their discoveries in allegory and by

the use of symbolic language and glyphics which

to matter-minded churchmen were unfathomable.

This fact is now known by those of today who

possess the occult key which alone can unlock

their treasury of wisdom. But as this is a theme

which comes not under the purview of our minds

in this treatise, we rightly forbear to dwell upon it.

The territorial jealousies, together with what

has been called the spiritual authority, of the two

sovereign Caliphates, Egypt and Bagdad, soon

broke forth into internecine warrings. The

province of Palestine was again o'erswept with

armed hosts, and while these warrings were ram

pant the Persian Turkomans, under the famous

chieftain, Togrul-beg, snatched the luxurious city

of Bagdad from the Arabian Caliph. This event

occurred in 1055 A.D. His son, the famous Alp

Arslan, a very oriental Napoleon, gained a mas

terly victory over the Greeks, making a prisoner

of Romanus Diogenes, the luxury-loving and

loose-moralled emperor of Constantinople. Ars-

lan's son, Malek Shah, forced the Saracens

(Arabians) out of Jerusalem in 1065 A.D., and

thus the Turks were in possession. Prior to this

event the Hospital of St. John the Almoner was

founded in Jerusalem, and its humanitarian work

62 MALTA KNIGHTHOOD

was being carried on most creditably under the

supervising care of a noble-hearted man whose

name was Gerard. The ensuing chapter will bring:

before the reader's mind, in as clear and concise

a manner as possible, the growth and chivalric

deeds achieved by the Hospitallers of St. John.

CHAPTER IV

HOW THE HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN THE

ALMONER BECAME THE KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS

OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST

"Oh, hallowed memories of the past,

Ye legends old and fair!

Still be your light upon us cast,

Your music on the air."

THREE succeeding centuries from the halcyon

years of the good and wise Charlemagne,

the generous Frank who, by the way, was

crowned by the Pope's hand on Christmas Day,

A.D. 800, with the iron Crown of the Caesars, had

brought about intolerable conditions throughout

Palestine, for the Turkish rulers manifested

naught else than deathly enmity towards Christ

ian pilgrims, who, in their superfluous fanatic zeal,

trampled in an unceasing stream towards the

Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. We may consist

ently opine that this inveterate enmity of the

Turkomans was in no sense a one-sided evil, for,

be it known, the religious Latins were deeply

schooled in hate for any and all religions which

in word and spirit were contrary to that of Rome.

It is justly proper to declare this, for it is a consti

tutional ingredient of the Latin Church to inveigh

against and hate all other religions.

We of today may deem it to have been naught

63

64 A HISTORY OF

else than a fanatic craze and impulsion—as it

truly was—which caused the multitudes from

European countries to hazard life and limb in such

dangerous trampings eastward, but doubtless had

we been living in those unbooked times, wholly

under the spell of the Latin Church's claims, we

would have done the same thing, and, it may be,

left our carcases to regale vultures and jackals

in Asia Minor or Syria. "Do as the Romans do"

carries weight in the opinion of mental copyists

in every age. The exceptional person is consid

ered even today by time-servers a peculiar mortal.

However, it is such peculiar people who sum up

the valued weight amid the lightness and levity

of humanity.

It appears that maritime merchants whose ves

sels trafficked between Italy and the Palestine

coast ports, gleaned many a well authenticated

tale of the invidious and cruel persecutions which

befell the unfortunate pilgrims from the western

countries from the heartless assaults of Kurdish

maurauders. This fact is not surprising, for every

country, east and west, was infested with merci

less brigands,—in fact, brigandage was a profes

sion—who defied both civil and religious law.

Today, as of yesterday, it is not prudent to travel

alone through certain European countries 'with

out an armed guard or attendant. What, then,

must conditions have been in those earlier years

we may clearly conjecture, when human life was

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 65

accounted a small matter indeed. Then, also, to

die by some sudden blow while in so sacred a

pursuit to the popular mind was to secure a sure

passport into the felicities of paradise. In truth,

Popes declared such journeying to be a sin-absolv

ing certainty. And what more valued pronounce

ment could be vouchsafed? Surely, then, un

learned pilgrims could bank on at least

post-mortem blessedness if, perchance, they

suddenly "shuffled off this mortal coil" while en

gaged in so laudable an enterprise. And as for

their earthly possessions, the glorious Church

would increase in material enrichment by their

demise. The author will have occasion to touch

on this phase of historic fact further on.

It appears that these merchants of Amain, in or

about the year 1050 A.D., had influence with the

Caliph of Cairo, Egypt, whose name was Monas-

ter-Billah, and by giving him a very costly present

gained permission to build a church in Jerusalem.

This edifice was dedicated to St. Mary ad Latinos.

Two hospitals were also erected, one of them dedi

cated to St. John the Almoner, the other to Mary

Magdalene. As to the date of this building event

historians differ a year or two. Both dates, 1048

and 1050, have been set down. We are credibly

informed that St. John the Almoner, or the "Char

itable," was neither the Evangelist not the Baptist,

but a certain Cyprian (native of Cyprus) who had

been Patriarch of Alexandria. In the seventh

66 A HISTORY OF

century when Jerusalem first fell into the hands

of the Arabians, he sent money and provisions to

the afflicted Christians, and supplied such as fled

into Egypt. Subsequently when the Hospital

monks became a military order, they renounced

the patronage of the Almoner and placed them

selves under the more august tutelage of St. John

the Baptist, at which time they became known

as "The Knight Hospitallers of St. John." It will

be of interest to submit an authoritative statement

as to the work taken in hand by the self-sacrific

ing men of this fraternity. "Thtese charitable

establishments were open to the suffering of every

persuasion, and even the Moslems received alms.

The members of the Christian church were enter

tained without distinction of nation or condition.

There they clothed again such as had been

stripped by robbers; there the sick were treated

with care; and every kind of misery found, in the

charity of these Hospitallers, a new kind of mercy

to relieve it." In the able work of Robert Morris,

LL.D., Coins of the Grand Masters of the Order of

Malta, it is stated that it was monks of St. Bene

dict who served in the Hospital at its founding.

Other authorities, however, state that when it was

duly recognized as the order, "Hospitallers of St.

John of Jerusalem," it was under the rules of St.

Augustine. Be that as it may, the work faithfully

performed was highly commendable, and was

generously supported by those philanthropic mer-

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 69

chants who sensed its need and importance.

Those who became Hospitallers took three dis

tinctive vows, viz., Chastity, Poverty, and Obedi

ence. Their lives were consecrated to the service,

and there is recorded no desertion or apostacy of

their number.

It appears that a native of Provence, France,

by name Gerard Tunc, joined the monks of the

Hospital shortly after it was built, and he being

a prudent and purely virtuous man, was chosen

by the serving brothers as Rector, that is, Over

seer. The monks wore a regular habit, consisting

of a plain black robe, upon which, on the side

next the heart, was attached an eight-pointed

cross of white linen. In the preceding chapter

the author recounted the overthrow of the

Arabian rule in Jerusalem and Palestine by the

Turkomans, who, although they had espoused

Mohammed's teaching, did in no degree stay their

lust to grasp territory from the Arabians, and

glean riches by plunder. Then, also, as they were

subjects of the caliphate of Bagdad, and the

Palestine Moslems were of Cairo, Egypt, they

possessed little if any secular regard for those

wliom they supplanted. In much this unfraternal

status of the two Mohammedan houses had its

counterpart in Christendom between the Latin

and Greek citizens of the two contentious capital

cities. Scarcely seven years had elapsed from the

Hospital's founding when the blood-spilling Turk

70 A HISTORY OP

omans took Jerusalem as their prey. Now there

was increased need for Gerard and his serving

brethren. Handicapped though they were in >

many trying ways, they persisted in their j

Christian labors.

Though the European nations were soon ap

prised of Jerusalem's adverse change in rulers,

the fact of knowing appeared not to daunt the

courage or change the purpose of men to pilgrim

age to the Holy City. The writer in this connec

tion proffers the remark that nothing conspires

to make men so bent and persistent in will and

act as deep-rooted religious belief, whether the

belief is senseless superstition, or, on the other

hand, inspired truth.

Historically considered, there was a cause for

increasing pilgrimage in those truly dangerous

years which few readers of today are enlightened

upon. It was as follows. A certain hermit of

Thuringia in Germany, Bernhard by name, had

preached that at the end of a thousand years from

A.D. 1 the fetters of Satan would be broken, and

the earth would be consumed by fire. Moreover, I

ere the fiery deluge, Christ would appear on

Mount Zion at Jerusalem and gather the Christ

ians to himself. This belief took possession of

multitudes, and swept throughout the western

nations. Beyond doubt, it imbued many with the

pilgrimage craze, and the clergy were not slow in

using it to Church enrichment in earthly posses-

GERARD, REGENT OF THE HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 71

sions. Of truth, they never have been sensitively

modest in this material regard.

It is the exact truth that very many pilgrims

were unmercifully, yes, inhumanly treated at the

hands of robbers and assassins, while the ruling

Kurd in Jerusalem remained heartlessly indiffer

ent, so long as tribute money flowed into his

sordid hands.

Pope Gregory VII, spurred to act by the Greek

Emperor, raised an army of fifty thousand men,

promising to lead them in person to Jerusalem

and overthrow the infidel oppressor of his people.

Alas! the Pope was no sort of a Moses, for not

like unto that illustrious man he did not choose

to suffer the afflictions of his people in camp life,

so that neither he or his army started eastward.

Later, when this Pope had gone the silent way of

all the earth, it was uncouth and unkempt Peter—

a genuine Peter who had no pompous chair—a

French hermit, that had the honor of being the

stirring instrument who caused all Europe to

awaken to Jerusalem's distress and affliction.

The Hermit had made the pilgrimage, and being

an exceptionally shrewd man, he succeeded in

getting both to and from Jerusalem alive and well.

With a letter of appeal for urgent aid from the

Patriarch of Jerusalem, he journeyed to Rome to

bestir, if possible, the Pope to action. Pope Urban

listened to the sturdy hermit recount his personal

experience, also facts which he had gleaned from

72 A HISTORY OF

other sufferers. Then the Pope read the Patri

arch's stirring appeal, after which he gave the

Hermit authority to voice a crusade in the name

of the Church. As to the person of Peter we are

told, "He was a little low hard-favoured fellow,

and therefore, in show, more to be condemned

than feared; yet under such simple and homely

feature lay unregarded a most subtile, sharp, and

piercing wit, fraught with discretion and sound

judgment, still applying to some use what he had

in his long and painful travel most curiously

observed. The oppressions and profanations that

were his theme,—his long uncouth beard—his

naked feet—his extreme abstinence—and his aus

tere and holy life, won for him the reverence of a

saint, and the fame of a prophet; and prince and

peasant alike burned with pious impatience to

hasten to the East, and deliver Palestine from the

unbelieving race."

In a strictly worldly sense this crusade, awak

ening to the ridding Palestine of another people

than the Jews, can be consistently viewed, but in

the white light of New Testament teaching, the

pure doctrines and spirit of the Master of men,

it focalizes as a huge and glaring anachronism, a

direct contradiction of Christian teaching. But

assuredly it was religious, as fully and sincerely

so as was the earlier uprising of the Arabian con

verts of Mohammed. It may be truly declared

that man-welded and assembled religions, diluted

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 73

as they ever are, more or less, with superstitious

imaginings, invariably implant hate and unfra-

ternal oppositions in men's souls, and always are

strife producing agencies among men; whereas

the pure and heavenly teachings which powerfully

tend to veto all partiality, the lust for power and

earthly honors out of men's souls, actuate to

peace, fellowship, and good-will to mankind.

As in the Roman Pilate's day in old Jerusalem

the soldiery of Caesar used the cross to destroy

victims of their displeasure and condemning, even

thus, after the lapse of centuries, the Latin

Church used the cross—the same emblem—to

spur Europe's soldiery on to destroy its enemies.

Here, then, the writer pens a thought which the

reader will do well to consider carefully. The

divine Teacher did not preach strife or retaliation

for ignoble injury. When his disciple would use

the sword, his quiet command was, "Put up thy

sword in its sheath." But the Master's doctrine

has never been practised, in any full laudable

manner, by the Latin Church, however strenu

ously it has vaunted the claim to full and exclu

sive right in the possession of Christian authority.

Pope Urban summoned a council at Plancentla,

at which, we are told, four thousand of the clergy

and thirty thousand of the laity were in attend

ance. At this initial council definite crusading

seed was sown, but its effective blossoming was

effected at a little later council, held at Clermont,

74 A HISTORY OF

France. At this later council Urban was both

vociferous in stirring appeal, and, withal, very

ingenious in statement. With other words the

historian informs us that "he explained the

supineness of the Greeks, and the necessity that

existed for interference on the part of the nations

of the west; observing, with great naivete, that

those who lived in the east were under the influ

ence of a scorching sun, and had, therefore, little

blood to spare; and that it behooved those who

lived in a different climate, their blood flowing

luxuriantly in their veins, to shed it freely for the

sake of Christ. To those joining the Crusade he

promised plenary forgiveness of sin and heavenly

beatitude after death." This pontifical ebulition

stirred the vast assembly, as a sudden and strong

autumn wind stirs the tinted leaves of a forest,

and one thought and emotion found vehement

expression. The words, "Deus vult! Deus vult!"

(God wills it) , were shouted by one and all of the

multitude. Afterwards these words were used as

the crusaders' battle-cry.

Pope Urban of course was aware that he voiced

a physiological fib in referring slightingly to

Oriental lack of blood. He was astutely politic

enough to apprehend that a crusade movement in

no degree would financially impoverish the Pope's

exchecquer, but no doubt would increase the

same. As an old writer remarks, "The Popes were

the only gainers by the great adventure; and all

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 75

other princes of Europe, when they cast up their

audit, found themselves losers." However, this

historian completely overlooked the post-mortal

gain to the tens of thousands, who, though losing

earthly riches and their lives, had for pay the

Pope's promise of sin-forgiveness and heavenly

beatitude, whatever the latter words may have

meant. As recorded proof that the "Chair of

Peter" profited by this hot-headed movement, the

following submitted fact from an authoritative

pen is our attestation. "Bustice, the brother of

Godfrey de Bouillon, sold all his possessions to the

Church; and the other leaders of the crusade

acted in a similar manner, their example imitated

by persons of every rank in society." There,

reader, you have it in black and white. Just how

and from where the Latin Church—that is, of

course, the ruling clerics—came into possession

of the wherewithal, the metallic pabulum, to nego

tiate successfully such wholesale buyings,—well,

the close-observing student of our present times

need not have occasion to ask such a question.

The Latin clergy have ever heaped to themselves

fame as being earth's most successful money-

getters. This fact impelled the pen of an olden

time rhymster to write:

In olden times, so I've been told,

The crosier was wood while the bishop was gold;

But now 'tis most clear without being told,

The bishop is wood while his crosier Is gold.

76 A HISTORY OF

None of the monarchs of Europe took up the

crusader's sword in this first crusading movement.

It will be interesting, doubtless, to the reader to

learn the names of the sturdy and chivalric lead

ers who led eastward the mighty host of religion's

warriors. "Of the princes who acted as leaders

in the first Crusade the following were the most

illustrious; Godfrey de Bouillon; his brothers,

Eustice and Baldwin; Robert Curthose, Duke of

Normandy (brother of the King of England) ;

Stephen, Earl of Albermale; Roger de Clinton,

Bishop of Lichfield; Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and

Earl of Kent ; Robert, Count of Flanders ; Stephen,

Count of Chartres; Adhelm, Bishop of Puy, (the

Pope's Legate); Raymond, Count of Thoulouse;

William, Bishop of Orange; Hugh, Count of Ver-

mandois; Bohemund, the son of Robert Guscard;

and his cousin, Tancred."

We may in all truth remark, the crusade en

thusiasm was unspeakably intense throughout

all Europe. High and low were alike infected.

Such is a law of human life. The science of psy

chology reveals to us the fact that strongly

impelled thought, magnetically imbued, is amaz

ingly infective, for good or ill. Its subtle power

grips minds as in a vice, and it takes a strong will

to free the mind therefrom. If, then, it be toned

with religion, and accepted as the will of God, the

reader need not be told as to the grip it possesses.

The illiterate masses of men, being peculiarly

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 77

addicted to religious influence, and also, no doubt,

smelling personal license and lawless liberty in

crusading trampings abroad, urged the Hermit

to be their leader to Jerusalem and to start forth

with. Peter, it appears, yielded to their crazy

demands, and choosing a certain soldier of for

tune whom he knew, Walter Sensavier, known as

"Walter the Penniless," as captain over some

sixty-thousand undisciplined and, in much, con

scienceless freebooters, he started on the fateful

wild-goose chase.

This fanatic mob upon reaching Bulgaria found

their food at low ebb, and without parley overran

all villages and towns, robbing and murdering the

surprised citizens. At last the natives armed

themselves and in reprisal slaughtered hundreds

of them. Upon the filthy swarm reaching the

suburbs of Constantinople, the Emperor Alexius,

being astutely politic, summoned the two leaders

into his presence, and submitted to them his

magnanimous (?) plan to ship them across the

Bosphorus into Asia Minor, the territory of the

Sultan of Nice, which famous city was his capital.

The Emperor informed them that by report he

had learned that the Turkish army was at a dis

tance, hence if the crusaders would move forward

at once they could without much opposition enter

Nice and enrich themselves at the Sultan's ex

pense. The Emperor's shrewd proposition was

most greedily assented to, and as speedily as pos

78 A HISTORY OF

sible they were shipped out of his dominions. It

appears, however, that the wise Hermit concluded

that it would be safer for him to return westward,

and await the moving of the war-disciplined

troops, hence the irrational host was forsaken by

Peter. Walter, their captain, moved them toward

their coveted prize, when suddenly as they jour

neyed they found themselves ringed completely

by mounted spearsmen, a great army of cruel

Turkomans. Now the Turkish atabal war-cry

rang forth, and the horsemen closed in upon the

fated and fear-stricken multitude. It is sufficient

to say that hardly a man of the European mob of

would-be crusaders escaped with his life. After

the slaughter ceased, the Sultan commanded that

the tens of thousands of corpses be piled into an

enormous pyramid, and left as a fear-inspiring

witness of Turkish judgment inflicted upon those

who chose to antagonize his sovereign pre

rogative.

It will not be improper to tarry at this point of

our historic survey and query: In the last analysis

who, if any among men, merited responsibility

for this wholesale slaughter? Was it Alexius, the

Hermit, or Urban? Which of these three men

voiced initial authority to crusade to Jerusalem?

The writer chooses to have the reader answer

satisfactorily for himself.

The various crusade armies, under their intrepid

chieftains, from various points of Europe con

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 79

verged in their marching on Constantinople as the

point of crossing into Asia. While the Greek Em

peror greeted the princes with smiling unction, he

at the same time feared for his sovereignty, and

after some serious eventuations, they came to

mutual agreement as to a course of action. A

writer informs us that "it was with secret dismay,

rather than joy, that he (the Emperor) beheld this

restless torrent of French, English, German, and

Italian warriors, roll from the westward on his

startled capital." Certainly, the pillaging of the

Hermit's unkempt mob must have weighed upon

his sensitive and furtive mind. The crusade ar

mies, numerically, have been set down as follows.

"The knights and their martial attendants alone

amounted to a hundred thousand fighting men,

and the pilgrims able to bear arms, to about six

hundred thousand. The knights and their squires

were mounted on richly caparisoned horses, and

completely sheathed in gleaming steel. The former

were further armed with an iron mace, a long

lance, and a sword and buckler; and each inde

pendent chieftain was known by his banner." The

crusaders crossed the Bosphorus and marched on

Nice. They passed and beheld the horrible pyra

mid of European corpses, and this view set their

jaws with determination to avenge the slaughter.

Nice they found strongly fortified and warrior-

armed. After some weeks of incessant assailing

in which their loss of men was as great as their

80 A HISTORY OF

enemy, they appealed to the Emperor to have

ships moved across the land to Lake Ascanlus,

which was near the city, and by which the citizens

could secure food supplies. This was done, and

after five weeks the citizens swung open the gates

to the crusaders. Of course, the Emperor Alexius

claimed Nice as belonging to his sovereignty, and

this was agreed to after very costly presents were

given to the chieftains. From Nice they marched

onward, fighting as they marched, for Turkish

warriors were around and about them. At last

they reached Dorylaum, a very large and stoutly

fortressed city. They encompassed it with a ring

of steel, while all sorts of crude but powerful

battering-rams were used against the formidable

walls. Here they were compelled to fight one of

their most bloody and notable conflicts. In the

midst of the days of their incessant fightings,

when many of their men were manifesting signs

of home-sickness, even of despair, a report spread

that there had been found the Roman spear which

had been used to pierce the quivering body of

Jesus on Calvary's cross. This report wondrously

revived the Cross warriors. We are not told, of

course, who gained possession of such a sacred

relic,—perhaps, however, one of the bishops—or

by what sure way it could be vouched for as genu

ine, neither are we told who of men had preserved

it through ten centuries. However, in some con

ditions in life, and in certain trying times, credul-

GHOUP OF WAR WEAPONS

Early Musket; Lever Cross-bow; Mace;

Decorated Cross-bow; Decorated Pike; Cross-bow Bolts

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 83

ity, let it be remarked, may work to good

advantage and to strengthening of purpose. Be

this as it may, the reputed sacred spear in the

Latin crusader's midst enheartened all, and thus

assisted to victorious achievement. Four thou

sand crusaders were slain at Dorylaum, while

three thousand Turkish captains are said to have

perished. When victory was won the crusade

army rested and fed to repletion. It was the army

of Bohemund which took Dorylaum, while the

other chieftains' armies were assailing and taking

other city fortresses.

After sufficiently resting and recouping this

division marched toward the opulent and great

city of Antioch in Syria, northward of Palestine.

The reader who has familiarized his mind with the

contents of the New Testament book of The Acts,

will know that it was in Antioch that believers in

Christ were nicknamed "Christians." After seven

months' besiegement of Antioch, by a price paid

to an influential citizen, Bohemund and his army

gained ingress. This citizen traitor caused the

city's double-walled gates to be swung open one

very dark and cloudy night.

Gaining entrance, after seven months of deathly

struggle, the crusaders gave themselves over to

rest and much surfeiting. Here they tarried for

seven months in which many, weary of warring

and forgetful of their initial religious zeal, re

turned to Europe. Careless as to food consump

84 A HISTORY OF

tion, and also no doubt of sanitation, they ran out

of eatables and experienced the sharp tooth of

famine, and with it a death-dealing plague. As

to this it is chronicled, "In the course of a few

months the former (the pestilence) swept off

above one hundred thousand men; while the latter

(the famine) reduced the miserable survivors to

feed on offal and carrion, and even on human

flesh. . . . Had not the chiefs and spiritual lords,

who accompanied the crusade, resorted to pious

frauds to keep the host together, the conquest of

Antioch would, in all probability, have been its last

triumph."

In May, 1099, the fortunate survivors of plague

and famine quitted Antioch, and skirting the

coasts of Syria and Palestine they reached Jaffa,

anciently known as Joppa. In their marching

they were plenteously supplied with food by the

citizens, and also by provision ships from Italian

ports. Other divisions of the crusade army had

stormed and taken other cities, while the brother

of Bouillon had, against the wishes of other chief

tains, marched to the Euphrates and grasped for

himself a huge territory. This act tones to our

minds the truth that territorial conquest and

earthly riches played no minor part in the moving

tragic drama rung into action by Pope Urban.

In this connection there is a point of honor, as

well as historic interest, worthy of the reader's

notice. The Turkomans who had torn Palestine

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 85

from the Arabian Caliphate had, it appears,

crossed scimitars among themselves, one chieftain

warring against another. Prior to the European

crusade avalanche the Arabian Caliph had sent an

army into Palestine, and regained sovereignty.

This Caliph, as the reader knows, prior to the

seven years of Turkoman misrule, had treated

the Christians with consideration. When the

crusade army reached Palestine this Caliph was

in control of Jerusalem. Dwelling in Egypt he

dispatched his Vizier to Jerusalem to formulate

a league of continued peace with the Europeans.

Note what the historian chronicles as to the

matter. "He was willing to enter into a league

with the crusaders for the utter expulsion of the

Tartarian spoliators; but neither his politics or

his religion permitted him to accord them a per

manent settlement in the land. The Christians,

condemning what they held to be a breach of

faith, and reckless whc^ier their swords drank

Turkish or Saracen blood, rejected the proposed

treaty with disdain ; and sent him for answer, that

with the same keys with which they had opened

the gates of Nice, Tarsus, Antioch, and Edessa,

they would open Jerusalem." The reader should

remember that Jerusalem had not been a Latin

possession, neither a Greek, for nearly five hun

dred years, and also its upbuilding in 117 A.D. was

the work of a pagan Caesar. Justly viewed, the

Saracen Caliph possessed sovereignty right to the

8G A HISTORY OF

city. Not only so, but the old Jerusalem of the

Jews viciously cast without its gates the divine

Christ, he whom these Europeans professed to

adore. Of a truth "consistency is a jewel" not al

ways possessed by self-securing men. The above

may to the thoughtful reader be altogether a new

angle of mind-visualizing, but the writer deems it

worthy of setting forth.

Jerusalem was garrisoned by forty thousand

regular troops of the Caliph, commanded by

Istaker, a famous general. Besides these, some

twenty thousand inhabitants took up arms for

defence. The Saracen leader imprisoned within

the city all Latins, and Gerard, the Rector of St.

John's Hospital, was one of these. On the seventh

of June, 1099, the crusade army camped before

the city, and its besiegement was on. Of the

seven hundred thousand fighting men who had

begun the crusade march, only about twenty-two

thousand were mustered at Jerusalem's besiege

ment. Tens of thousands were fleshless skeletons

on arid battle-fields ; other thousands were plague-

consuming corpses around Antioch; while tens of

thousands had deserted crusading toils and tar

nished their religious reputation thereby. How

ever, many troops had been left stationed in the

various conquered cities of Syria and Asia Minor.

As it would improperly lengthen this chapter if

the writer dwelt upon, even in a measurable

degree, the doings within the terrible weeks that

GROUP OF SHAFTED WAR WEAPONS

Military Flails; Marteaux; Axes; Fauchards; Corsesques;

Military Forks; Halberds; Partisans; Guisarmes

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 89

ensued ere Jerusalem fell into the crusaders'

hands, the vicious struggle will be passed over.

Upon the fifteenth day of July, at the hour of three

in the afternoon, "the standard of the Cross

waved in triumph on the walls; and, after four

hundred and sixty years of bondage the Holy City

passed from under the Mohammedan yoke." A

recorded incident as to the kindly doings of the

Rector of the Hospital while the crusaders were

beneath the beleaguered city's walls is interesting.

We are told that "during its (the siege's) continu

ance, Gerard, the superintendent of the hospital,

is said to have been discovered by the infidels

throwing bread to the Christians. He was seized,

and taken before their general ; but when the sup

posed bread was exposed to view, it had been

miraculously turned to stone. Gerard was dis

missed and permitted to continue his former prac

tice, and the stones which he threw from the city

walls at the besiegers were converted into bread.

Thus the Master of the Hospitallers was in favor

with both parties." The average reader may

smile with incredulity upon reading this recorded

performance, but to many people, then as now,

such marvelous enactments in no way strain their

powers of belief. These take all such stories as

unquestionable fact, and moreover would consider

the doubting person one to be religiously dis

countenanced, even under condemnation's ban.

The crusaders, when they rushed into Jerusa

90 MALTA KNIGHTHOOD

lem, lost all sense of mercy and human sympathy.

It is authoritatively declared that "all who showed

the smallest disposition to resist were hewn down ;

and, for three whole days, promiscuous massacre

and pillage prevailed. Ten thousand miserable

beings, who had been promised quarter, were

barbarously put to the sword; and infants even

were butchered in the cradle, and at their mother's

breast. In the court of the Mosque of Omar, a

structure built on the site of the famous Temple

of Solomon, to which thousands of fugitives fled

as a sanctuary, the Latin knights rode fetlock-

deep in Saracen gore." Now there had ensued

no such hellish butchery as this of the Christians

by their antagonists when the Arabians under

Omar in 637 A.D. took possession. Does not the

fact attest that the Mohammedan was more im

bued with the spirit of Him who died on a Roman

cross, than those Europeans who religiously, at

least, revered the cross?

CHAPTER V

THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM

"With the eye of a spirit I look on that shore,

Where pilgrim and prophet have lingered before;

With the glide of a spirit I traverse the sod

Made bright by the steps of the angels of God."

/""\F all the crusading chieftains, Godfrey de

Bouillon was the most famed for piety, con

siderate conduct, and chivalrous spirit. In every

way he was a true and noble-hearted leader of

men. Religiously, to him, the Latin Church com

prehended in earthly power and movement the

complete zodiac of divine religion. Now it is quite

easy to sense this belief of very many people, for

the reason that they view the external organiza

tion as the institution which the Christ founded

among men, when the truth is that he founded no

external institution other than having with him

for three and a half years twelve men who were

his students, that is, disciples, and who became

apostles, in other words, mission-sent proclaimers

and demonstrators of his divine doctrines.

If the writer mind-visualizes the primitive

records aright, those gospelers among men,

throughout their lives, did not uprear any external

edifice and declare it to be the Church, but rather

to them the Spirit-led believers constituted the

91

92 A HISTORY OF

Ecclesia, that is, the Christian Assembly. True,

the primitive believers were fraternally united, and

in assembling together performed, as occasion

required, the rites of baptism, as also the partak

ing of bread.

It is justly proper to appraise any and all ex

istent institutions, not by the judgment of those

men who are influential rulers in and over them,

and who are sustained by them, but, rather, by

the moral and mental effects which they outwork

in the lives and conduct of those who make up

their membership. "By their fruits ye shall know

them," declared the Master, and he in this uttered

a truism. All organizations change, not only in

outward appearance, ' but, what is more vital,

frequently in spirit. So it was with the Hospital

of St. John in Jerusalem. At its founding there

was no thought as to military action or relation

ship. Its exclusive work was humane and philan

thropic. In this it was truly Christian. Not only

so, but its labors were wholly apart from all re

ligious bias and favoritism. What it took upon

itself later, is now the interesting matter which

will be brought to the reader's attention.

When Jerusalem fell into the possession of the

crusaders, a council of the leaders was held to

elect a king and institute a government. To the

minds of all the Europeans, what they considered

a Christian kingdom was the prime factor to

bring about.

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 93

It appears that Godfrey de Bouillon was proper

ly considered the prince among princes who, in

every way, was fitted to fill and do honor to such

an exalted seat. Just why the Pope who chose

to be held among men as Christ's earthly vice-

regent did not now look upon the "Holy City" as

the proper place from whence to sway the nations,

and move his court therein, no reason is given,

hence we can only conjecture. Possibly the ten

ure of peaceful possession was, to his mind, too

precarious to seriously consider such a movement.

Be the truth what it may, the Pope did not deem

it a laudable or necessary thing to so much as

visit the land in which Jesus dwelt. Godfrey was

chosen and acclaimed King of Jerusalem, yet

when the Patriarch was in the act of placing upon

his head a jeweled crown, Godfrey interposed a

refusal to wear such a symbol of exaltation. Said

he, "I cannot consent to wear a crown of gold,

where the Saviour of mankind wore a crown of

thorns." Those were unselfishly spoken words,

and reverberate down the passing centuries as

attestation of this man's true nobility of soul. It

will be of interest to the reader to note the re

corded question which the council asked an

answer to, as also the reply, as to the fitness of

Godfrey. "What faults have you observed in the

Duke of Lorraine?" "The only fault we find with

our master," answered the voters, "is, that when

matins are over, he will stay so long in church to

94 A HiSTORY OF

learn the name of every image and picture, that

dinner is often spoiled by his long tarrying."

"Ah," said the council, "as this man's worst vice

appears to us a great virtue, Jerusalem could not

have a better sovereign." One of Godfrey's first

official acts was to visit the St. John Hospital.

He found it pressed full of diseased and war-

wounded men, both Christians and Infidels. To

the reader the writer deems it proper to say that

in his use of the words "Christian" and "Infidel"

as distinguishing names, he does so in a historical,

he may say, in a national sense, for, in truth, in

much the Moslem religionists manifested in con

duct—and this, after all, is what counts—as great

a measure of soul nobility as their enemies.

Directly after visiting the Hospital, Godfrey re

solved upon enriching the Christian institution by

personally deeding to it the extensive landed

estate of Montboire in Brabant, France, with all

its dependencies. This philanthropic act of God

frey, the "Defender of the Holy Tomb," initiated

a prolonged custom of charitable givings which

while laudable and acceptable worked not always

to Hospitaller humility and unselfishness. Every

justly good thing, we may say, must guard against

the ever present demoralizing tendency. It is not

the goodly action which essences evil: it is the

self-enriching spirit of those men who reap and

control the benefits of the virtuous-minded bene

factors. It appears that Godfrey was not alone

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 95

in his estimate of the St. John's Hospital, for when

Raymond du Puis, Dudon de Comps, and Gastus

of Berdiez beheld the self-sacrificing labors of

Gerard and his brethren, these nobles forsook all

thought of returning to their western homes, and

voluntarily dedicated their lives to the Hospital

work. Gerard now felt that the Hospital should

become a recognized and officially declared broth

erhood. This was effected, and Pope Paschal the

Second confirmed it as "The Hospitallers of St.

John the Baptist," exempting the Order from all

tithes, with the privilege of electing its own

superior, and wholly independent of clerical inter

position. It is needless to say that this confirming

act of the Pope greatly pleased both Gerard and

his Hospitallers, and they had every reason to

prize their freedom from clerical intrusion, and

any possible pushing of power. This Papal recog

nition transpired in 1113 A.D.

When Godfrey was elected "Defender of the

Holy Sepulchre," an honored title of his own

choosing, July 23, 1099, his brother Baldwin, who

had possessed himself of Edessa in Mesopotamia,

journeyed thither with his retainers, while the

gallant-warrior chieftain Bohemond, together

with his army, returned to Antioch in Syria.

Possibly it was true that the majority of the living

crusaders, after Jerusalem was possessed, re

turned to their far distant homes. Reiterated

reports as to the Christian virtues of the unselfish

96 A HISTORY OF

monks of St. John's Hospital were voiced every

where, and such ready advertising reaped larges

ses to the enlarged upkeep, as also propertied

influence, of the Order. Then, also, in no small

degree, the knowledge that the Pope had gen

erously recognized it and given it his blessing

greatly conspired to its international popularity.

As to this we may in common parlance say, "its

fortune was made." A writer in touching this

beneficiary phase of the Hospital remarks, "The

rapid enrichment of the Hospital exalted the piety,

and perhaps the pride, of the Rector; and, in

accordance with the spirit of the times, he mani

fested his zeal by the erection of a superb church,

situated on the spot which tradition pointed out as

the retreat of Zacharias, the father of John the

Baptist, to whom the structure was dedicated."

Godfrey did not have at his command other

than a small company of retainers against any

possible attempt on the part of Egypt's Caliph to

retake Jerusalem. The historian Gibbon informs

us that "the new king embraced his departing

companions, and could retain only with the

gallant Tancred three hundred knights and two

thousand foot soldiers for the defence of Pales

tine." Surely, such a depletion did not bespeak

crusade prudence, or, indeed, any genuine love for

the welfare of Jerusalem.

Doubtless the reader may not be clear in mind

as to the mention of knights of St. John or knights

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 97

of the Temple, for neither of these orders of

knighthood was at that hour in existence.

Whence, then, came they? The historian Gibbon,

peer of historians, will enlighten the reader as to

this query. He writes, "Between the age of Char

lemagne and that of the crusades, a revolution

had taken place among the Spaniards, the Nor

mans, and the French, which was gradually ex

tended to the rest of Europe. The service of the

infantry was degraded to the plebians (peasants) ;

the cavalry formed the strength of the armies,

and the honorable name of miles, or soldier, was

confined to the gentlemen who served on horse

back, and were invested with the character of

knighthood. The dukes and counts, who had

usurped the rights of sovereignty, divided the

provinces among their faithful barons ; barons dis

tributed among their vassals the fiefs or beneficies

of their jurisdiction; and these military tenants,

the peers of each other and their lord, composed

the noble or equestrian order, which disdained to

conceive the peasant or burgher of the same

species with themselves. The dignity of their birth

was preserved by pure and equal alliances; their

sons alone, who could produce four quarters or

lines of ancestry, without spot or reproach, might

legally pretend to the honor of knighthood; but

a valiant plebian was sometimes enriched and en

nobled by the sword, and became the father of

a new race. A single knight could impart accord

98 A HISTORY OF

ing to his judgment, the character which he re

ceived; and the warlike sovereigns of Europe de

rived more glory from this personal distinction

than from the lustre of their diadem. This cere

mony, of which some traces may be found in

Tacitus, was in its origin simple and profane

(secular) ; the candidate, after some previous

trial, was invested with the sword and spurs; and

his cheek or shoulder was touched with a slight

blow, as an emblem of the last affront which it

was lawful for him to endure ... As the champion

of God and the ladies (I blush to unite such dis

cordant names), he devoted himself to speak the

truth; to maintain the right; to protect the dis

tressed; to practice courtesy, a virtue less familiar

to the ancients; to pursue the infidels; to despise

the allurements of ease and safety; and to vindi

cate in every perilous adventure the honor of his

character." The knowledge which the above

writing gives to the reader is proper excuse for its

appearance in this chapter of our treatise.

We thus learn that military knighthood ante

dated the founding of the semi-militant orders of

which that of St. John of Jerusalem was the first.

The religious orders patterned in much after the

strictly military, in that in their ceremonial in

vestiture they gave a spiritual tone to every move

ment in the performance. Of a fact, in those

times there was no important, attractive, and

usable ingredient or thing among men which the

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 99

Church did not take and engraft as a part and

parcel of her furniture and ceremonialism. This

policy was, in an earthly aspect, astute, yet he

who reads to spiritual profit the apostolic writings

cannot but discern the distinct apostacy, a com

plete demarcation from the Gospel economy. Of

course, charitable liberality of judgment is a virtue

to possess, but when it is compounded with the

ingredients ignorance and indifference, the mix

ture is morally and mentally a fatal poison.

Godfrey must have keenly felt the quick depart

ure of so many of his crusade companions, yet

there were many vitally important matters, both

of church and state, to fully engage his mind and

spirit. One of the things which caused him not

a little vexation was the demand upon him by the

newly chosen Patriarch of Jerusalem. It appears

that a certain bishop, Daimbert, archbishop of

Pisa, Italy, was chosen to rule the Church in

Palestine. This cleric bearded Godfrey with the

demand that Jerusalem and the sea-port Jaffa

should be the possession of the Church, and as

the king was a loyal son of the Church this matter

would forthwith be attended to. Godfrey did not

assent to this cleric's demand in full, but con

sented to apportion one quarter of Jerusalem and

Jaffa as the property of the Church. Now this

important fact in history has been passed by in

silence by almost all writers of crusade history,

but Gibbon, who in life was free from clerical fear

118293A

100 A HISTORY OF

or carefulness as to ecclesiastical displeasure, has

seen fit to enlighten his readers as to this proper

ty-grasping incident. However, this old-time

claim-demanding incident stands not in isolation

on history's page. The like spirit, in many ways,

exists at the present hour, and is potentially oper

ative among men. And, doubtless, there are

leaders in secular affairs who are quite ready to

palliate the disturbing and vexing spirits by un

justifiable acts of liberality.

Hardly two full weeks passed by from the hour

of Godfrey's chosen ruleship when news reached

him that a Moslem arcny was on the march from

Egypt towards Jerusalem. It appears that when

this force of warriors left Egypt, the news of Jeru

salem's change of rulers had not reached the

Caliph, hence the force sent was meant to

strengthen the defence against the besieging cru

saders by harassing their encampments. This

army was under the command of Emir Afhal, a

renowned warrior Saracen. He had vowed in the

presence of the Caliph to annihilate the Europe

ans. But his impulsive vow came to naught.

Military strategy appealed to Godfrey as the ne

cessary line of action, so instead of awaiting the

onslaught of this reported enemy, the Christian

warriors by quick marchings southward, came

suddenly in sight of the Moslems encamped on

the plains of Ascalon. The city, or fortress, of

Ascalon was a possession of the Caliph's. It

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 101

appears that large herds of cattle were driven in

the van of the Moslem army, presumably for army

food. The Christian knights with their squires

and staunch retainers received the blessing of the

Church, and also looked upon the true Cross

which the bishop caused to be raised in their

midst, and thus being imbued with crusade fervor

they galloped furiously towards their enemy. The

animal herds first beheld them in their sun-lit

mail, and became crazed with fear, and stampeded

the Emir's camp. The Moslems could see but

murkily for clouds of dust, while the war-cry,

"Deus Vult! Deus Vult!" of the onrushing, intrepid

crusaders threw their enemy into a fear-inspired

panic. The Emir was defeated from the begin

ning, ere sword clashed with scimitar. He fled

to Ascalon, while many of his troops were hewn

to pieces. Few of the crusaders were slain, and

they returned to Jerusalem heavily laden with the

spoils of war. The writer of this treatise is im

pressed with the thought that it was because of

this battle with the enemy at Ascalon, so quickly

after Jerusalem's deliverance, that the new-

recruited Hospitaller, Raymond du Puis, together

with his brother Hospitallers who as crusade

princes were skilled in arms, conceived the

thought to convert the Hospitallers into a semi-

military knighthood order.

What was this proud Emir's humiliation and

undoing, was to the glorification and strengthen

102 A HISTORY OF

ing of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Gerard's order

received all wounded warriors, while new and

greatly enlarged edifices were upreared. Not only

so, but as the order was continually receiving

manorial estates and monies, in and from Europe

an countries, Gerard conceived the plan to found

like hospitals in various maritime cities of the

west. This was done, the better to hold, as also

oversee, the estates of the Hospitaller order.

These we are told were the first commanderies of

the Order of St. John. These were the "houses of

St. Giles in Provence, Tarento in Apulia, Messina

in Sicily, and latterly Seville in Andalusia, Spain."

It appears that Godfrey sent his intrepid warrior,

Tancred, with his bold retainers into Galilee to

take the city of Tiberius, a city mentioned in the

Gospels. This city with others was speedily

possessed, and in the bloom of subjugating victory

Tancred marched into Syria towards the old and

wealthy city of Damascus. He, however, soon

learned that he lacked sufficient troops to cope

with the Sultan of Syria's army, hence he sent

word to Godfrey as to his army's plight and dis

tress. Godfrey responded to the call, and beat

back the encircling enemy, thus rescuing the

brave and bold crusaders. Homeward they jour

neyed, and the Emir of Ceserea came out in peace

to meet Jerusalem's king, and presented to God

frey an offering of the country's fruits. As to the

issue of the presentation, we read, "Godfrey by

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 103

way of courtesy accepted a cedar apple. He had

scarcely eaten this, however, when he suddenly

became sick, and his knights in alarm conveyed

him to Joppa. At Joppa Godfrey grew worse ; and

on the 18th of July, 1100, after committing the

kingdom of Jerusalem to the companions of his

victories, he breathed his last." The sudden death

of Godfrey fell upon all Christian dwellers in and

around Jerusalem like a pall of darkness, as he

was loved and respected by all. His unselfish zeal

was ever manifest, and this virtue was not then,

as it is not in our day, a common commodity

which men in official positions possess. This

nobleman was devoutly laid to rest in the Church

of the Holy Sepulchre.

Directly after the burial ceremony, the Barons

who were in Jerusalem, together with the Patri

arch, met in council to make choice of a prince

to fill the royal seat of sovereignty. Much conten

tion prevailed, for the Patriarch declared the city

was the Church's possession, hence his choice

alone was lawful. This wordy usurpation was

in no way conceded by the princes, so the upshot

of the contention was that the audacious cleric

sent a messenger to Antioch to ask Bohemund

to come at once to Jerusalem to take ruleship as

king in the name of the Church. The Barons, on

the other hand, sent a messenger to Baldwin,

Godfrey's brother in Edessa, to hasten to Jeru

salem to assume kingly honors. Alas for the plan

104 A HISTORY OF

of the autocratic Patriarch! It appears that un

fortunate Bohemund was at the time a war

prisoner in the hands of the Sultan, he having

been too venturesome in his ambitious conquests.

Baldwin at the head of fourteen hundred stalwart

retainers came speedily to the Holy City, and upon

his arrival all the citizens and soldiers heartily

welcomed the warrior prince, proclaiming him as

their lawful monarch. However, ere he could be

crowned, the opposition of the officious Patriarch,

whose hand should place the crown upon his head,

must perforce be overcome. For a time the

Patriarch was obdurate, but at last he yielded,

and Baldwin became King of Jerusalem by secular

and spiritual right. In reading the above historic

fact, the thoughtful reader can clearly see how

exalted rulers of the Church have mixed into, in

fact, in much, initiated the contentions and trou

bles which men of State affairs have been called

to experience. In declaring this the writer does

so in the consciousness that unimpeachable his

toric records attest his statement to be of truth.

Return we now to the important incidents and

enactments which made the Hospitallers of St.

John a most illustrious and service-rendering

semi-military institution, known among the na

tions as "The Order of Knights Hospitallers of

St. John." Almost at the same time that Godfrey

came to an untimely end, the Regent of the Hos-

RAYMOND DU PUI, FIRST GRAND-MASTER OF THE

KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 105

pital, Gerard, passed away. He, however, fell like

a sheaf of grain fully ripe.

There ensued no discussion at his death as to

who among the Hospitallers was most worthily

fitted to be Gerard's successor, for Raymond du

Puis was the acceptable choice of all. This illus

trious man did not, as many smaller men do, work

to seat himself in a larger chair than his person

could properly fill, but the vacant seat demanded

of Raymond that he should seat himself therein

for toilsome service. The duties of Regent were

no longer local, but far-reaching, and in every

way trying, for hospitals of the Order were being

founded in European countries, while increasing

properties were coming into its possession. As

Raymond and other Brothers of the Order had

proved their metal as brave-hearted crusade war

riors, and as the newly established Christian

kingdom of Palestine was girt about with im

placable enemies, it certainly was a statesman

like thought in Raymond to utilize to the limit the

militant strength of the Hospitallers for the se

curity and permanency of the Kingdom of Pales

tine. Being himself a man of noble blood, doubt

less he had been ceremoniously dubbed Knight,

in a military way, hence as such he had vowed

to use the sword upon those who presumed to

o'erstep the recognized law of right, as all such

knights saw the right. He, moreover, could

rightly perform the knighthood action upon such

106 A HISTORY OF

men as he deemed "duly and truly prepared,

worthy, and well qualified." Thus it was that he,

upon taking in hand the manifold duties of the

order, zealously set about the task of the order's

reconstruction. First of all he brought his plan

to the attention of the Patriarch, and gained the

official churchman's ready assent thereto. A

council was forthwith held, and, as we are told,

"fresh laws were drawn up, and the brethren took

an oath to defend the Holy Sepulchre, and to wage

a war of extermination against the infidels. Pope

Boniface confirmed the rules of the Order, and

gave permission to the members to assume the

title of "Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jeru

salem." In this connection, the author deems it

of instruction to the reader to pen the important

fact that in the year following Godfrey's, as also

Gerard's death, that is, in this same year in which

the Hospitallers became a knightly order, 1119

A.D., a new semi-military order was officially in

stituted in Jerusalem, known in history as the

Knights of the Temple. C. G. Addison, in his

history of The Knight Templars, sets the date of

the founding of this illustrious Order as 1113 A.D.

However, the following is worthy of particular

notice. Addison writes, "At first, we are told, they

had no church, and no particular place of abode,

but in the year of our Lord 1118, nineteen years

after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders,

they had rendered such good and acceptable ser

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 107

vice (it may be as military knights?) to the

Christians, that Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem,

the cousin of King Godfrey, granted them a place

of habitation within the sacred inclosure of the

Temple on Mount Moriah." Now there appears

in this statement a discrepancy, not only of date,

but also of King Baldwin's relationship to Godfrey.

Godfrey died in 1118, and as the learned author of

Military Religious Orders, F. C. Woodhouse, M.A.,

remarks, "It was during the reign of Baldwin II,

King of Jerusalem, that Gerard, the father and

veritable founder of the Order of Hospitallers,

died." Now as Gerard passed away in the same

year as Godfrey, and as Godfrey's brother Baldwin

became King of Jerusalem, reigning eighteen

years, he it was who granted to Hugh de Payens

and his eight French knight crusaders, the privi

lege to establish themselves near the site whereon

had stood Solomon's Temple. This occurred in

1118, seven years subsequent to Addison's found

ing date. An old historian declares as follows,

"This Order (the Templars) was founded in 1119,

and took its name from the knights dwelling in

part of the temple at Jerusalem." It may be quite

possible that the temple this old writer had in

mind was the Mosque of Omar, the Arabian

prince, or Sheik, which stood where had stood the

temple of Solomon. Now 1119 was the year in

which the Hospitallers became a knighthood

order, after a course of years' service, clearly and

108 A HISTORY OF

definitely chronicled, first as Hospital Serving

Brothers, followed by the name, Hospitallers of

St. John. Major Whitworth Porter in his exhaust

ive and erudite history, History of the Knights of

Malta, writes as follows, "It appears distinctly

enough, that the founder of the Order of the

Temple did not commence the regular establish

ment of his small fraternity (nine French Sir

Knights) till the year 1118; and the institution of

that Order was not formed on a regular basis until

at least ten years after that date. If, therefore, it

can be proved that Raymond succeeded to the

government of the Hospital on the death of

Gerard in 1118, and at once proceeded to organize

his brotherhood upon a martial basis, the Order

of St. John claims by right the priority of forma

tion . . . Upon a careful review of the evidence

adduced on all sides, it appears that 1119 must

have been about the date at which the system

was inaugurated." With Major Porter's words,

we will let this point as to priority rest, and move

forward. However, as every sailing vessel that

sails the sea is frequently compelled to tack ship,

In other words, to veer from straightline coursing,

the better to make head-way against opposing

winds, in like manner, of enlightening necessity,

the writer is compelled frequently to introduce

and with brevity dwell upon matters, factors, and

correlative movements which, for at least the time

being, may be considered by the reader as non-

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 109

essential, yet nevertheless go to the possessing

of well-rounded knowledge. This, then, is the

writer's reason for inserting the above in the

coursing of this chapter. And, moreover, as the

history of these two religio-militant Orders bears

abundant witness to their indomitable doings in

mutual battling against their common foeman,

this treatise would be wholly out of poise, we may

say, unwarrantably biased, if its author ignored

the chivalrous co-labors of the Knights of the

Temple. Truly, no enlightened writer who at

tempts to portray on printed page the amazing

exploits of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John

of Jerusalem, of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Malta, need

entertain any pause-producing fear that the

Order's heroic, self-sacrificing deeds performed

can suffer an eclipsing by the recounted deeds of

any other institution of brave men.

After the Order of Hospitallers was by Ray

mond reconstituted a knightly order, we learn that

"the knights wore a black robe having a white

linen cross of eight points fastened on the left

side; and took (as from the beginning) the vows

of chastity, obedience, and poverty. They after

wards had a red military cloak, but this was not

used in the house." Of course, when they were

aface the Infidel in death-dealing strife their

bodies were encased in mail, as also, in a measur

able degree, their horses.

In the performance of knighthood ceremonial

110 A HISTORY OF

the action, as also utterances, were both solemn,

mind-engaging, and intensely interesting. There

was not the shadow, not a bubble, of that which

is today termed "horse-play" manifest in conduct.

The atmosphere of religion pervaded and gave

breath to the refined ceremony. To life-lastingly

impress the postulant with the seriousness and

ennoblement of knighthood was ever in the fore

ground. Briefly enumerated, the following initia

tory movements of investiture are interesting and

illuminating.

"1st. A sword was given the novice, in order

to show him that he must be valiant.

2nd. A cross hilt, as his valour must defend

religion.

3rd. He was struck three times over the

shoulder with the sword, to teach him to patiently

suffer for Christ.

4th. He had to wipe the sword, as his life must

be undeflled.

5th. Gilt spurs were put on, because he was

to spurn wealth at his heels.

6th. He took a taper in his hand, as it was his

duty to enlighten others by his exemplary conduct.

7th. He had to go and hear mass."

As to such ceremonial movements being orig

inal, in other words, the formulated initiatory of

Raymond or his knights, we are historically

assured that such was not the case. Long prior

to the founding of these religio-militant orders,

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 111

as has been previously touched upon, militant

knighthood was a very popular factor among the

ruling houses of Europe, hence we may confident

ly conclude that many, if not all, the ceremonial

movements as above enumerated, together with

others, were clearly an adaptation of the military

code of knighthood investiture. True enough, the

symbolic meaning, the exemplification of the ac

tion, was a mere elaborate spiritulization, al

though the military ritual was expressedly relig

ious. The reader would be clearly in error in

thinking that all the members of the Order were

recognized postulants for knighthood honors.

Such was not the case. Only those who could

prove that the strain of Europe's princely families,

or houses, was in their blood were eligible for

knightly honors. In this aspect, the reader can

understand, the Order was a close corporation, in

much an institutional aristocracy. This phase of

these orders was wholly unchristian in precept

and policy, but in those terribly illiterate times

when human savagery and barbarism as restless,

turbid waters laved the walls of cities from with

out, the reason for, and recognition of, such a

law of favoritism can be appraised more intelli

gently. In this connection it comes not amiss to

say: the term villain, as used today as expressive

of a basely wicked person, in the times of which

we write stood for a member of the lowest order

of persons, a feudal serf, a propertyless boor, and

112 A HISTORY OF

not expressive of any special moral status of the

man. Our word village comes from the same Latin

root source as does the word villain. Villagers

were those simple people who dwelt apart from

the wealth and vanity of cities, and anciently were

completely subject to the lords and barons who

heavily tithed all the fruits of their work-horse

labors. This social inequality is very distinctly

suggested in Shakespeare's incomparable dramas.

Thus the prince of Denmark, Hamlet, declares to

his friend Horatio, "By the lord, Horatio, these

three years I have taken note of it; the age has

grown so picked (affected), that the toe of the

peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier,

he galls his kibe (chilblain)." We of today may

rejoice in the fact that the French Revolution in

much removed the plebeian yoke from off the

common people of honorable toil. However, the

reader must not think that the famous Order of

St. John was despotic, or toned with unprincipled

ingredient. Strictly speaking, it was signally im

partial in its administration, and officially degreed

its membership in a wise and worthy way, as the

writer will now set forth. There were three ser

viceable grades, or classes, of its membership.

"First, the Knights, who should bear arms and

form a military body for service in the field against

the enemies of Christ (the Church) in general,

and of the kingdom of Jerusalem in particular.

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 113

These were to be of necessity men of noble or

gentle blood.

"Secondly, the Clergy or Chaplains, who were

required to carry on the services in the churches

of the Order, to visit the sick in the hospitals, and

to follow the Knights to the field, and undertake

ministration to the wounded.

"Thirdly, the Serving Brethren, who were not

required to be men of rank, and who acted as

esquires to the Knights, and assisted in the care

of the hospitals.

"All persons of these three classes were consid

ered alike members of the Order, and took the

usual three monastic vows, and wore the armorial

bearings of the Order, and enjoyed its rights and

privileges."

A word of historic information relative to the

recognized and official colors of both the Orders

of St. John and Templars will be instructive. We

find it stated that it was Pope Alexander IV, who

reigned as Pope from 1254 A.D. to 1261, who de

creed that the Knights of St. John should be dis

tinguished "by a white cross on a red ground,"

while the Knights of the Temple should be dis

tinguished "by a red cross on a white ground."

The reader can readily perceive how that the

Pope, "in days of old when knights were bold,"

exercised full and all-comprehending prerogative.

However, few of them lived and died happily.

CHAPTER VI

THE KNIGHTS OP ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM

IN STIRRING CONFLICTS

"The Knights are dust;

Their swords are rust;

Their souls are with the saints, we trust."

S regards the definite date that the Order of

** Hospitallers became a recognized order of

knighthood, the year 1119 A.D. has been given as

historically accurate. The only value which at

tached to the date of the Order being reconstruct

ed into a knighthood institution,—at least, what

was for centuries deemed of special value,—was

that of priority. The author does no violence to

truth or the unbiased spirit of fraternity in saying

that from the founding of the Order of the Knights

of the Temple its members chose to manifest in

many ways a spirit of superiority, hence, to con

cede the priority of the Order of St. John was

to them irritating. Now in thus saying, it would

not comport with historic truth to affirm that the

St. John Knights were immune from this trouble-

breeding microbe, this ungracious spirit which

roots in the soul's soil. This spirit manifests in

the individual, in family, as well as in institutions,

religious or secular. Its influence is often felt

where it is not openly shown. It is no plant in the

114

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 115

pure Christian soil, but is a pricking weed of

selfish origin and growth. Obviously enough, the

robe of humility, however ceremonially symbol

ized, cannot be investitured on any man by

another. Neither King or Pope can do this.

Voiced words by no means can change the leop

ard's spots, or the Ethiopian's skin, for "as a man

thinketh in his heart, so is he."

In the preceding chapter the reader was In

formed as to some important points in the making

of a Knight. Before moving forward in our sur

vey of the valorous deeds and conquests of the

Knights of St. John, it will be instructive to the

reader to have before him an old and accredited

statement as to ancient procedure in Knight cre

ating. From a work on Heraldry, printed in Lon

don in 1784, we subjoin the following: "The most

ancient manner of conferring Knighthood was by

putting the military belt loose over the shoulder,

or girding it close about the waist. The first

Christian Kings, at giving their belt, kissed the

new Knight on the left cheek, saying, 'In honor

of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost,

I make you a Knight.' The first account that we

have of Ceremonies in making a Knight in Eng

land was in the year 506, in the following manner ;

viz., a stage was erected, in some cathedral, or

spacious place near it, to which the gentleman

was conducted to receive the honor of Knight

hood. Being seated on a chair decorated with

116 A HISTORY OF

green silk, it was demanded of him if he were of

a good constitution, and able to undergo the

fatigue required in a soldier; also were he a man

of good morals, and what credible witnesses he

could produce to affirm the same. Then the

Bishop or chief Prelate of the Church, adminis

tered the following oath: 'Sir you that desire to

receive the order of Knighthood, swear before

God, and this holy book, that you will not fight

against his Majesty, that now bestoweth the order

of Knighthood upon you. You shall also swear,

to maintain and defend all Ladies, Gentlewomen,

Widows and Orphans; and you shall shun no ad

venture of your person in any war wherein you

shall happen to be.' The oath being taken, two

Lords led him to the King, who drew his sword,

and laid it upon his head, saying, 'God and St.

George (or what other Saint the King pleased to

name) make thee a good Knight;' after which,

seven Ladies dressed in white came and girt a

sword on his side, and four Knights put on his

spurs. These ceremonies being over, the Queen

took him by the right hand, and a Duchess by the

left, and led him to a rich seat, placed on an

ascent, where they seated him, the King sitting on

his right hand, and the Queen on his left. Then

the Lords and Ladies also sat down upon other

seats, three descents under the King; and being

all thus seated, they were entertained with a deli

cate collation; and so the ceremony ended." In

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 117

connection with this ancient record of Knight

making and investing, the following old ballad

is subjoined,—

" 'Bear thou this blow,' said the King to the Knight,

'But never bear blow again;

For thy sword is to keep thine honour white,

And thine honour must keep thy good sword bright,

And both must be free from stain.'

The monarch he lifted a Damascene blade

O'er the kneeling Count's brow on high;

A blow on his shoulder full gently he laid.

And by that little action a Knight he is made,

Baptized into Chivalry."

Such was the manner of Knighting a novice five

centuries prior to the days of the Crusades, and,

let it be known, in the author's researches of far

earlier times, centuries prior to A.D. 1, much like

ceremonies were enacted at the elevation of the

neophyte initiate who had passed through the

seven years of arduous testings of the templed

Mysteries of Egypt and Greece. The later cere

monies were, in much, a revision, concision, and

reconstruction of the earlier enactments, intro

duced into Church and State. Ere leaving this

interesting phase it will not be amiss to say that

what is known as the ceremonial accolade sums

the official action of Knight designation. The

word is from the Latin, accoler, embrace, and

collum, neck, hence its meaning is, "The salutation

given to one upon whom knighthood has been

118 A HISTORY OF

conferred, formerly an embrace or kiss, afterward

a light blow with the sword."

It would be an unpardonable offence for any

informed writer on Knighthood, especially so of

one who has received the accolade, to remain

silent as to the assistant institutional labors of

the "Dames of St. John." When the Amalfi mer

chants gained the privilege to erect edifices in

Jerusalem for charitable purposes, we read that

"a chapel was built near the holy sepulchre, and

dedicated to the Virgin, under the title of St. Mary

ad Latinos, and at the same time two hospitals, or

houses of reception for pilgrims of both sexes,

were erected in the same quarter, and placed un

der the protection of St. John the Almoner and

St. Mary Magdalene." The historian, William

Waller, in this connection states, "In addition to

the knights, there were Nun Hospitallers, who

had a separate establishment in Jerusalem. The

dress worn by these seems to have been somewhat

similar in all the countries in which the order

existed ; these nuns were introduced into England

at the same period as the knights, and they were

subject to, although they afterwards acted quite

independently of them. Very few particulars have

been preserved respecting these female establish

ments; but it may be presumed they were but

few in number, as Henry the Second, in 1180,

ordered the whole of the sisters to be collected

together, and then gave them the preceptory of

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 119

Buckland in Somersetshire for a place of resi

dence, where they remained until the dissolution

of the religious houses in 1540." It is declared

as authentic that some of these Dames Hospi

tallers of Palestine were at times impelled to

mount chargers, and, with real Amazonian brav

ery and zeal, exchange sword blows with the on-

rushing cavalry of the Infidel. Having this fact

in mind, a quaint old-time English writer penned

the following:

"March on, for the shrill trumpet and the fife

Your tongues will serve; and to secure your life

You need no weapon,—every face and eye

Carrieth sufficient artillery."

Now the only criticism the author of this treatise

would pen as to the fatal effect of such "artillery,"

would be its similar results upon Christian and

Infidel. Obviously, history attests the truth of our

criticism. However this may be, it is indubitably

true that women have in every age outlived more

virtuous deeds than men. It is the mothers of the

race who have and do, even prenatally, impress

psychic gifts in their offspring; and such gifts, in

the light of philosophy, are what tells in matured

life.

With the penning of the above brief statement

as to the praiseworthy Dames of St. John, we re

vert to the incessant strivings for mastery, as

also for territorial holdings, by both Christian

120 A HISTORY OP

and Infidel. It will be of historic worth for the

reader to know that while religious antagonism

ever lay at the root of blood-shedding warriors,

such was not the exclusive reason for much of the

merciless and destructive conflicts which raged

long and loud. Western princes beheld in the

affluent and expansive East luscious plums of

real-estate, awaiting grasping and garnering by

the instrumental use of spears and swords. Hav

ing, therefore, little at home to occupy their ad

venturesome-loving minds, and disdaining, most

generally, to spend time in any literary way, even

so much as to acquire what they considered "the

monkish acquirement of writing," they took up

crusading as a means to a very worldly end, while

the risk of forfeiting their lives in the strain and

stress of martial conflict was to them a stirring

ingredient. It was not so much spiritual as

worldly ambition which was the spur in those

tempestuous times. Had it been otherwise, the

crusade leaders would have been willing to con

fine their territorial emancipating to the land of

Palestine, and left the cities and stretches of Asia

and Egypt to their long-settled citizens. But this

they disdained to do. The warrior prince, Bohe-

mund, possessed himself of Antioch in Syria as an

initial prophecy of property-grasping on a gigantic

scale, and with this queen city the rich province

fell into his grasp. Prince Baldwin had swept

eastward, as we have seen, into Mesopotamia,

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 121

and stormed and taken Bdessa, the capital of that

province or principality. These were held as

sovereignties by the princes. Thus real-estate

grasping woefully weakened crusader strength,

and the Holy City was bereft of trained soldiery

to properly withstand all possible besiegement.

Moreover, had the Europeans as to their religious

profession been more consistent in conduct, in

other words, had the separation of Christian and

Infidel been an exclusive factor, as it was with

the Knights of St. John, there would not have been

bred what was looked upon as a new race or

species of people in whose veins ran Christian

and Infidel blood. These people were known as

the Pullani, children of Syrian mothers and Euro

pean fathers. In much, it was the territorial am

bition of the leading crusade princes which was

the selfish factor for prolonged and destructive

contests of strength between the Europeans and

the Asiatics. The Cross and the Crescent, of

course, were inspiriting heraldic ensigns, or ban

ners, but apart from this the moral and spiritual

distinction was not so marked as an unread

person imagines.

It appears that King Baldwin of Jerusalem was

the father of two daughters, Millicent and Alice.

The younger, Alice, was given as wife to Bohe-

mund II, the son of the renowned warrior, Bohe-

mund of Antioch. After this union, it transpired

that the famous Count of Anjou of France, Fulk

122 A HISTORY OF

by name, pilgrimaged to Jerusalem, having, it is

said by some writers, become distracted by grief

over the death of his wife, by others, to show

penitence for a wicked deed perpetrated. Reach

ing the Holy Sepulchre he, we are told, "caused

his body to be scourged with broom twigs, which

grew in great plenty there. Thus it was he ever

after took the name of Plantagenet, or Broom-

stalk, which was continued by his noble posterity."

King Baldwin saw in the Count a nobleman well

fitted to be the husband of Mellicent, although

he was some sixty years of age, and the King

proposed the union, stipulating to bestow upon

him as his son-in-law at his own death the sover

eignty of Jerusalem and Palestine. The Count

agreed to the proposal, and, forthwith, married

the princess; Alice never forgave her father for

thus ignoring her princely husband as to any pos

sible hope to Jerusalem's sovereignty. Count

Fulk had left in Europe his youthful son, Geoffrey,

as Count of Anjou and Main. King Henry I of

England beheld in this titled youth a fitting mate

for his widowed daughter, Maud, his only child,

hence he proposed the union and Geoffrey readily

assented. The offspring of this marriage, the son

Henry, became King Henry II of England, and his

house, as also himself, chose "a sprig of broom in

their bonnets" in memory of their grandparent

having been as a pilgrim penitent stoutly thrashed

therewith. Whether this broom-wearing gave rise

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 123

to the wearing of what is familiarly known as the

cockade to designate the wearer's partizanship,

the writer cannot say. Perhaps not, for custom,

as to most everything, antedates authentic his

tory. The Plantagenet house ruled over 300 years

the Kingdom of England. The famous warrior

monarch, Richard Cceur de Lion, was the great-

grandson of Fulk, the "Broom-Stalk," who suc

ceeded Baldwin as King of Jerusalem. This bit

of biographical history the writer subjoins as an

interesting item.

King Baldwin received news that his son-in-law,

Bohemund of Antioch, had been entrapped by the

wily Infidel and slain in battle. The news startled

Baldwin, for Alice and her infant daughter were

in imminent danger, and, not only so, the King

had fixed his mind on assuming the regency of

that rich principality. True, there were many

battles to be fought ere Palestine would be a

possession, but with Baldwin "a bird in the hand

was worth two in the bush," hence the territory

of Palestine, with its sea-port cities of Tyre, Sidon,

Acre, and others, could remain for the time being

possessed by the Infidel. As the Jerusalem mem

bership of the Order of St. John had increased

amazingly, and aspirants for knighthood honors

were flowing east from all princely and baronial

homes, Baldwin had a large body of Knights of

St. John, as also a goodly number of well-mailed

and horsed Knights of the Temple, to brave the

124 A HISTORY OP

spears and scimitars of their inveterate foemen.

They marched with rapidity, and unexpectedly

struck the Emir's army. As to the issue we are

told, "The Knights of St. John gathered their first

laurels in this engagement. Baldwin, with the

ardor of a redoubted soldier, flung himself into the

thickest of the fight, followed by Du Puis (Ray

mond) and his hospitallers, and the bravest of the

Christian Lords." After victory was won Baldwin

and his distinguished Knights returned to Jeru

salem, yet not to grow indolent by inaction, or

impoverish the principality by monetary rewards

bestowed. The winds of war continued to blow,

if not from one quarter, then from another. If it

was not the cross warriors who were tirelessly

galloping towards some Moslem city or fortress,

it was the soldiery of the crescent who were in

their war-saddles intent upon destruction and

plunder. In 1122 the Prince of Edessa, who was

an impotent, happy-go-lucky chieftain, a kins

man of Baldwin, was waylaid and made prisoner

by the Moslem Emir, Balak. Hearing the report,

the Knights at once mounted their chargers and

were off eastward toward the Euphrates with

avengement in mind and heart. Of course, the

wily Emir was expectantly on the lookout for the

coming of his foe. King Baldwin, it appears,

chose a knightly escort and in person attempted

to do some scouting. Alas, he was outclassed in

subtlety and was suddenly surrounded, his brave

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 125

escort cut to pieces, and he himself made a

prisoner of war. His main army now was set

upon by a far superior host of fresh and rested

cavalry, and though the Knights hewed their way

into the center of the Moslem host, they at last,

a remnant body, were compelled to enter the gates

of Edessa to endure there besiegement with their

warrior King in captivity. The reader may be

sure there followed no delay when the sorry news

reached Jerusalem. All alike were possessed with

the one thought of deliverance and avengement.

In all these death-dealing conflicts the Knights of

St. John, as likewise the Knights of the Temple,

were in arms the strength and stay of the Christ

ian forces. As the Master of the Knight Hospi

tallers is not mentioned by historians as being in

Jerusalem at this time of stress, we are led to

believe that he was with his harassed Knights

in Edessa. Eustace Gamier, constable of Pales

tine, an old warrior, with seven thousand troops

and the Jerusalem Knights, marched upon the

exultant foe, and the issue was a complete victory

for the Christians, and the liberation of the two

princely rulers. Returning in triumph to Jeru

salem, ladened with the spoils of war, it was not

to indulge long in rest and quietude. The Caliph

of Egypt had heard of Baldwin's defeat at Edessa,

and had sent an army to strike for Jerusalem's

retaking. Now Baldwin upon reaching Jerusalem

heard as to the intent and marching of the Infidel

126 A HISTORY OF

army, and plans were devised to circumvent the

enemy. The city and fortress of Ascalon on the

eastern coast of the Mediterranean, twelve miles

north of Gaza, was an important possession of the

Caliph. It was a storage city for army furnish-

ment. Baldwin determined to possess this gate

way for Egyptian troops. All were fully aware

of the struggle which would ensue. However,

this fact was no ground for doubt or cringing fear,

for Ascalon must be won to the Cross. A valiant

and determined army of mailed horsemen swept

southward. On their march they met a small

army of Moslems, and those who were not slaugh

tered, fled swiftly to Ascalon, pursued by the

valorous and implacable Knights. Both Orders

fought side by side in these encounters, and both

alike were imbued with the same spirit. The

Grand Masters of both the Orders led their

Knights at this memorable siege of Ascalon. Just

here it will not be amiss to say that this sounding

title was first applied to the Regent of the Hospi

tallers under the administration of Hugh de Revel,

who was Raymond de Puis' successor in 1267.

Up to his time the name, Master, had been suffi

cient. It is undeniably true that high-sounding

designations are not, in every instance, attestation

of high class ability or virtuous behaviour in the

persons who wear them officially. King David of

old Israel knew this, for he wrote, "I have seen the

wicked in great power, and spread himself like a

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 127

green bay tree, yet he passed away, and, lo, he

was not." The siege of Ascalon consumed

months of toil, stress, and struggle. The strong

walls remained intact, while hundreds of warrior

lives were sacrificed. At last King Baldwin en

tered into an agreement with the Admiral of the

Venetian fleet to attack both Ascalon and the

merchant city of Tyre from the sea in conjunction

with land attack. This was done, and after five

months these renowned cities fell into the posses

sion of the Christians. From the records we learn

that the Knights of the Temple built a great

movable tower with a gang-bridge on its top

which could be pushed on to the top of the wall.

This was moved near to the wall, but the Moslems

threw down piles of wood and fired the same with

Greek Fire. Oil, also, was abundantly poured on

the pile. The purpose was to destroy the tower,

but the wind blew the flames against the wall

throughout the night. When morning dawned the

stones were broken and crumbled by the intense

heat, and it was no difficult matter for the Temp

lars to press a passage into the city. Having so

done, the Moslems, for the time being, were

stricken with fear and fled apart from the swords

of the Templars. Alas ! the glaring selfishness and

vain ambition of the Grand Master of this Order

snatched victory away from the Christian army.

With sword in hand he refused to allow other

warriors than Templars to enter. The Knights of

128 A HISTORY OF

St. John were amazed at such an act of unfra-

ternal audacity and pride, and loudly voiced their

abhorrence of such o'erbearing meanness.

Baldwin was fiercely angry, yet could do nothing

to change the Templar's will. At last the Moslem

warriors rallied, and with shoutings pressed on

the Templars. Bravely they fought and fell, but

at last those who remained alive struggled

through the opening and escaped to the army.

Both the unsoldierly deed perpetrated, as also its

speedy issue, greatly affected the standing of the

Order. However, when the Moslem warriors

rushed from the city's gates to charge the Christ

ians, the remaining Templars pressed into the

midst of the foe and fought savagely and untir

ingly until a complete victory was won. Ascalon

capitulated immediately after the bloody battle,

and Baldwin became master of the city in 1157

A.D. This city was held by the Christians until

1187, when the famous Kurd, Saladin, over

whelmed the crusaders. In 1270 the Sultan

totally destroyed Ascalon, and filled its harbor

with stones from its dismantled walls. Today

broken pillars mark the location of what was a

fortressed city. In the meantime the city of Tyre,

the old opulent city of the Philistine or Phcenecian

people, much referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures,

had opened its ponderous gates to the Christian

swordsmen. Battle followed battle throughout

the reign of Jerusalem's king, while the two

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 129

Orders were constantly recruiting their war-

wearing ranks by a stream of ambitious and sterl

ing gentry from European countries. These few

years, bloody though they were, summed up the

hey-day of crusading success.

As it was wholly impossible to properly care

for their ever-increasing landed estates in Europe,

the liberal gifts of princely and baronial houses

which counted it an honor in having sons as

Knights in Palestine, Grand Commanderies, or

rather Priories, were judicially instituted in vari

ous countries, constituting what was for centuries

known as the Langues, that is, Languages of the

Order of St. John. These were (1) Provence, (2)

Auvergne, (3) France, (4) Italy, (5) Arragon, (6)

England, (7) Germany. The Anglo-Bavarian

language was afterwards substituted for that of

England, and that of Castile added to the number.

Priories in these countries were not instituted at

the same time. A Priory, as the term implies,

had precedence, was superior to any localized

Commandery; in fact, it was an official union or

correlation of provincial Commanderies.

Raymond du Puis died at the age of eighty

years, 1160 A.D. The unexcelled historian of

knighthood Orders, Major Porter, writes of this

illustrious Master, "A true type of the soldier, the

gentleman, and the Christian, he lived to see his

every desire accomplished, and the Order in which

all his ambition and all his hopes were centered

130 A HISTORY OP

take its place amidst the chivalry of Europe, upon

the highest pinnacle reared by the hands of fame."

Having overcome Palestine's Infidel rulers, had

the Christian King sheathed his sword of con

quest, as also the swords of the Knights, the rule

of the Cross—the writer uses the term in its

religio-military aspect—might have long contin

ued in Palestine. But, alas! the lust for multiplied

riches was the motive power, not, indeed, the mind

and heart conversion of the Oriental tribes to the

precepts and spirit of the cross-martyr, Jesus.

Inveterate hatred of those men who respected and

professed other teachings and religious leaders

than those of the Latin Church bore its fateful

fruit, death and destruction. The enlightened

reader need not wonder at this, for few Christians

in those times could read or write. Doubtless not

one of a million ever so much as had in hands

throughout life the Latin writings of the New

Testament. Thus, then, it was these twain fac

tors which spurred on the Christians to bloody

encounters in distant realms of power. In 1162

the King of Jerusalem, stoutly backed by the

valiant Orders of St. John and Templars, swept

into the Caliph's sovereignty of Egypt to assist

the Moslem in beating back the Turkomans who

were devastating the country. Jerusalem's King

was to receive a large annual tribute from the

Caliph for his military aid. If the inconsistency

of this enterprise was thought of, certainly the

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 131

thought did not affect the king, or the Knights

who assented to march with him. After one

battle ensued, a peace was declared with the

Turkoman leader. The youthful Kurdish prince,

Saladin, who became afterward "the Napoleon of

the East," was in this battle, and when peace was

declared, he being enthused at beholding the con

duct of the intrepid Knights, requested that he

might receive the accolade. Saladin's request

was granted, so we are told. This act, assuredly,

was giving knighthood honor in an indifferent

way. If it was the first o'erstepping of knight

hood rule, manifestly enough, it was in no way

the last. However, this sterling, intelligent Kurd

prince was in every way, other than religion,

worthy of such an honor.

Six years from this event, the King of Jerusalem

proposed to the Grand Commander of St. John

Knights that a real conquesting expedition into

Egypt be made, although the Caliph "scrupulously

observed" on his part the treaty and its tribute

paying. The Grand Commander, d'Ascali, assent

ed to the dishonorable undertaking, while, on the

other hand, the Templars stoutly opposed it. The

King's army was soon on the march, and in its

first onset on a fortress it was victorious. Then

with banners flying it swept toward Cairo, the

principal city of Egypt. The Caliph was not idle

in the meantime, but had despatched envoys to

Noureddan the Turkoman leader to assist him

132 A HISTORY OF

against men who while they were great warriors

did not hesitate, when mercenary motive prompt

ed, to trample on a treaty. Noureddan required

no second appeal sent him, so that he was soon

swiftly speeding with a large army towards Cairo.

When the Christian King discovered he ran the

danger of being hemmed around he properly con

cluded to lift the siege and hurriedly return with

his army to Jerusalem. It appears that the major

membership of the Order of St. John felt that

their Grand Master was wholly unworthy to retain

his position in the Order's midst, hence he con

cluded to retire and return to Europe. Shortly

afterward he was drowned in a shipwreck.

Later on by a few years, Saladin, who had be

come a worthy leader of the Turkoman army,

burst suddenly from the south desert into Pales

tine, and in the quick onflow of eventuations a

terrible conflict was waged on the shore of River

Jordon. The two Orders were compelled to bear

the brunt of the battle, and they were mercilessly

cut to pieces. The Grand Master of St. John, an

old tried crusader, although covered with wounds,

swam his war-horse across the river, and escaped.

The more unfortunate Grand Master of the Temp

lars, after nobly beating down many a foeman,

was captured. Doubtless he would have escaped

had he not been unhorsed by the spearsmen of

Saladin. It is recorded that in the furious moil

of death-dealing blows there suddenly appeared

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 133

a powerful Knight, astride of a milk-white horse,

who seemed to fight with more than mortal

strength. But he, too, fell, and the Turkoman

warriors—horrible to relate!—drank of his blood,

thinking that by so doing they would acquire his

strength, and partake of his prowess and fighting

worth.

With the coming of Saladin into war's arena

the death-knell of Christian, rather, Latin, sov

ereignty in Palestine was sounded. As to whether

the humiliating eventuality was a bane or a bless

ing, every enlightened mind must, perforce, tabu

late its own verdict. In 1187 Saladin's army

besieged the stronghold of Acre on the Palestine

coast. Acre was the most opulent city of Pales

tine, and its fortifications were considered impreg

nable. The two Orders threw a very strong

garrison of Knights into the city ere the Turko

mans reached its walls. But all to no saving

purpose were their herculean endeavours, their

life-sacrificing night sorties. In one of these sor

ties they set on fire the Turkoman camp, and in

the awful confusion which ensued, the Knights

believed the hour of deliverance had come. But

not so; Saladin appeared in person and rallied his

myriad warriors to quick reprisals. What fol

lowed, the chronicler informs us,—"The Grand

master of the Hospitallers repeatedly charged

through the Saracen squadrons; but at length his

horse received a wound which brought him down

134 A HISTORY OF

with his rider under him, and in a moment the

venerable knight lay weltering in his blood, and

hewn almost to pieces by the scimitars of the

barbarians. The Hospitallers, when they saw him

fall, formed a ring round his body; and it became

the centre of a desperate conflict, in which many

brave men of both armies fell."

The battle ended, however, without a decision

of complete victory, as Acre still held against

Saladin's entrance. He and his host retired from

besiegement for the time being, and marched on

the lake city of Tiberius. Here the King of Jeru

salem with his brave Knights crossed swords with

the determined Infidels. An awful conflict was

waged, and its issue was a complete victory for

Saladin. No less than thirty-thousand Christian

warriors were slain, while the King of Jerusalem

and the Grand Master of the Templars were made

captives.

Now, indeed, the last days of the kingdom of

Jerusalem were fast approaching. The Queen of

Jerusalem desired to placate Saladin's wrath by

the city's capitulation, but this proffer was per

emptorily turned down. The Kurd prince de

manded an unconditional surrender such as the

crusade prince, Godfrey, had demanded of its

Moslem Caliph. This the soldiery in the city

stoutly .refused, and besiegement was on. After

fifteen days of besieging Saladin assented to the

Queen's readiness to capitulate, and this was

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 135

agreed to by the defending warriors. While, how

ever, they expected merciless terms and treat

ment, Saladin as a conqueror surprised them. We

are told, "The terms were at once honorable to

the garrison, and indicative of a rare humanity in

the conqueror. The city was left undespoiled,

and the Christian nobles and soldiers were per

mitted to march out with their arms, and guar

anteed a safe convoy to any town in which they

might choose to seek refuge. As to the inhabi

tants, the native Greeks were allowed to remain

unmolested; but such as were Latin by descent

were required to pay a ransom, the men ten, the

women five, and the children two crowns of gold,

and to remove to some other place." Let the

thoughtful reader balance in mind this Infidel

prince's conduct when, some eighty years before,

Jerusalem was torn from the Moslem Caliph, and

within the sacred precincts of the Temple of Omar

10,000 citizens were mercilessly butchered. If

human mercy to a fallen foe is a Christian virtue

—and it is—then it must be confessed that this

Kurd conqueror, this infidel Mohammedan, mani

fested more Christian virtue than did those who

flauntingly professed to be soldiers of Christ. It

indeed is the logic of history—however unpalat

able the fact be—that those who profess the

loudest are frequently those whose lives display

the least of the spirit of their profession. It ever

appears that the professional displayment is vised

136 MALTA KNIGHTHOOD

as the virtuous thing itself, while the genuine

thing is indifferently ignored.

Saladin treated the Hospitallers in a kindly way.

He gave ten of their number permission to tarry

in the Hospital for a year, and thus care for the

sick and wounded to their curing. Ere in person

he entered the city, it is recorded that he "caused

the bells of the Christian temples to be broken

and melted down; and the Patriarchal Church,

which had originally been a magnificent mosque,

built by the Caliph Omar on the ruins of the

famous Temple of Solomon, was carefully purified

with rose water, and again dedicated to Infidel

rites." Thus fell Jerusalem again into the posses

sion of the Mohammedan warriors on October

2nd, 1187. Very properly has the historian

queried, "Was it for this that Peter had, in the

preceding century, thundered forth his denuncia

tions against the Infidel, and aroused to a pitch

of madness the enthusiasm of millions? Was it

for this that Europe had poured forth her votaries,

in countless hosts, to whiten the shores of Pales

tine with their bones?" No, it was not for this;

but unholy ambition and greed bore such a

harvesting.

CHAPTER VII

THE CRUSADE OF EUROPE'S KINGS, AND THE

VICTORIOUS DELIVERANCE OF ACRE

From shore to shore of either main

The tent is pitched, the Crescent shines

Along the Moslem's leaguering lines;

And far and wide as eye can reach

The turbaned cohorts throng the beach;

And there the Arab camel kneels,

And there his steed the Tartar wheels;

The Turkoman has left his herd,

The Sabre round his loins to gird.—BYRON

TJOTH the princes and clergy of the Latin-

churched kingdoms of Europe were dis

tressed at the tidings that Jerusalem was again

in complete control of the Infidel. But the Euro

peans, both at home and abroad, had justly none

others than themselves to blame for the change

of ownership. Had they been less covetous, more

humanely disposed and considerate, and had,

moreover, recognized the rights of those who in

lineage, manners, religion, as also in language,

differed from them, Jerusalem would have

become a glorious Christian city, "whither

the tribes go up," and in every way prosperous.

As in a community when a man persists

in outliving an over-bearing and hateful life,

even to brutality, and is ever ready to rage

upon those who choose to differ with his unman

137

138 A HISTORY OF

nerly conduct, such a fellow, sooner or later, must

reap the just reward of his meanness; thus it is

with a nation or an institution that chooses to

play the role of an organized bully for the material

riches which it purposes to secure.

The mills of the gods grind slowly,

Yet they grind exceeding small.

A new Crusade was voiced by kings and clerics

alike, for we are told that Pope Urban III took the

doleful news so keenly to heart that he died of

grief. The Cardinals moaned out their woe in a

very ostentatious manner, so much so that they

voiced new vows as to pure living. As to this

fact, an old time writer very aptly remarks that

their vows "were like mariners' vows, they ended

with the tempest." Men in those days were no

more generously disposed to disgorge what they

had grasped by hook or crook than the same class

of men are today. History proves this as true.

When many of the Latin citizens were expelled

by Saladin from Jerusalem they found their way

to Antioch which still was possessed by a Eur

opean prince. They were denied the right of

asylum by this autocrat, and, adding insult to

injury, he robbed them of their personal posses

sions. However, this contemptible man speedily

received his just deserts, for Saladin swept north

ward upon Antioch and wrung the rich city and

Syria from his base clutch.

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 139

The good Archbishop of Tyre journeyed to

Europe that he might, if possible, awaken the

nations to action for the redemption of Jerusalem,

but as a writer remarks, he found the "church

men, one and all, far more ready to recommend

the crusade to others, than to engage in it them

selves." However, a conference of the princes

was arranged, at which King Philip II of France,

and Henry II of England, were present. Though

these monarchs had no love for each other, yet

they mutually decided to become allies in a cru

sade, in connection with the German Emperor,

Frederick Barbarosa (the Red-haired), and the

Austrian monarch.

Philip and Henry at once set about raising

monies to properly equip large forces of warriors.

Those of men, able-bodied, who chose to remain

in their homes, were tithed one-tenth of their

possessions. This subsidy was called "Saladin's

Tithe." The King of Scotland paid Henry as a

tithe five-thousand marks, no small sum in those

days. The principal growlers against tithe pay

ment, we are told, "were the religious communi

ties" who had become rich by former crusaders'

gifts in every country. Their insincere plea was

that "princes ought to exact nothing from the

clergy but continued prayers for the success of

their arms." But such skim-milk disclaimers did

not satisfy the monarchs, and they paid their

apportionment, at least, it was taken from their

140 A HISTORY OF

holding. Henry died ere the armies were on their

way, and sturdy Richard, his son, became King of

England and Anjou. Richard, the Plantagenet,

embarked from Dover in 1189 A.D. with 30,000

foot and 5,000 horse soldiery. King Philip had

also recruited a large army. The elequent Arch

bishop of Tyre had traveled into Germany and

Austria, and fired the Germans and Austrians with

crusade enthusiasm. Powerful armies were soon

on the march eastward, led by royal sovereigns.

The Spanish monarchs required all their martial

strength at home to guard against the Moslem

Moors who were in possession of a large Spanish

province. Still, the Queen of Arragon founded

a beautiful monastery at Sienna and gave it to

the Nun-Hospitallers who had lost their home in

Jerusalem. In this they continued their virtuous

labors.

The German Emperor, Frederick Barbarosa,

while leading his army through Asia Minor,

bathed in the Cydnus River, and the waters being

cold by reason of the mountain snow, he took a

sudden chill which speedily resulted in his death.

This monarch was much beloved by his people,

although he had stoutly quarreled with the Pope,

yet he found that it was prudent, at least, politi

cally, to conciliate the Pope. Ere he could be

crowned by the Church, on his coronation day

the Pope said to him, "You must prove yourself

a faithful son of the Church by holding my stirrup

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 141

while I mount." We are told that the Emperor

reluctantly assented to the public humiliation.

We read, "All was going smoothly; but the Emper

or purposely mistook the stirrup. Then he

growled out, 'I have yet to learn the business of a

groom.' "

Richard of England was disappointed in getting

away on ships with his army, and to add to his

vexed spirit a fearful storm was experienced in

voyaging. Two of his transports were grounded

on the coast of Cyprus, a large island lying off the

coast of Syria. This island is 150 miles in length,

with an average breadth of 45 miles. The King of

Cyprus, Isaac Comneni, cruelly treated the

wrecked soldiery of Richard, and imprisoned

them. When Richard reached Cyprus, hearing of

Isaac's deed, as a lion he was enraged, and land

ing his men in the face of the Cyprian soldiery

he fought this unprincipled enemy to a stand-still.

Richard made a captive of Isaac, as also his

daughter, and claimed Cyprus as his war-won

possession. Isaac, it appears, much entreated

Richard that he might not be disgraced by bonds

of iron, hearing which Richard smiled and forth

with ordered chains of silver to be forged to bind

the royal captive. As to this king, an Anglo-

Norman monk penned, "He was the most wicked

of men. He was said to be a friend of Saladin,

and it was reported that they had drunk each

other's blood, as a sign and testimony of mutual

142 A HISTORY OF

treaty." A word here as to this abominable cus

tom of old. From history we glean that "a mode

of allied friendship was for the two parties to open

a vein and allow the blood to flow into the same

bowl, mixing it thus together in token of union

of lives. Sometimes wine was mixed with it and

each drank the draught."

Prior to Richard's arrival in Palestine, the pow

erful fortress of Acre had been, time and again,

stormed by the huge, though mixed army of cru

saders. Yet no substantial results accrued to the

besiegers, other than loss of men. There were

intrepid Knights of both Orders, French, Flemish,

Danish, Austrian, and German soldiery in the

motley army, but this proved more a weakness

than an advantage. In fact there had ensued

jealousies, selfish wranglings, and harsh incrimi-.

nations, among both princes and soldiers. What

was needed was a bold, forceful uncompromising

Napoleonic commander. Now King Richard of

England and Anjou possessed these qualities,

hence at his arrival matters quickly wore a more

hopeful aspect. He was recognized as command

er-in-chief.

In this connection it will be proper to call the

reader's attention to the founding of the Order of

Teutonic Knights. The German army had

reached Acre in a woeful condition. It had

fought its way through Asia Minor, not only

against Turkomans, but with famine and pesti

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 143

lence. Upon its arrival a huge tent was erected,

made up of ship sails, in which the wounded and

diseased Germans were humanely cared for. In

this army hospital was founded a knightly Order,

exclusively Germanic. Pope Celestine III, in 1192

A.D. gave permission to found the Order according

to the statutes of the Order of St. John, that is,

both military and hospitallic. The Order of the

Temple was but a religio-military order, it ap

pears. The dress of the Teutonic Knights was a

black dress, over which they wore a white cloak,

with a black cross upon the left shoulder. We are

told that "their clothes, armour, and the harness

of their horses were all of the plainest description ;

all gold, jewels, and other costly ornaments being

strictly forbidden. Arms of the best temper and

horses of good breed were provided. When they

marched to battle each knight had three or four

horses, and an esquire carried his shield and

lance."

When Richard landed at Acre he gave the keep

ing of the captive King of Cyprus to the St. John

Knights. They possessed the fortified castle of

Margat, not far distant. To the Knights of the

Temple he sold the island of Cyprus for three

hundred thousand livres. However, in after days

the Templars returned it to Richard, as to them

it proved more a bane than a blessing. If Richard

returned to them their monies, or paid them a

144 A HISTORY OF

lesser price for it, to personal enrichment, no word

is recorded.

At Richard's coming, all were heartened, al

though some princes were envious of him. How

selfishly natural is this spirit! It is a weed in

men's souls that remains vital throughout the

centuries. It requires more than an assent to

Church authority, or an adherence to and taste

for high-class ceremonialism, to uproot it.

The English King set the pace to the goal of

Acre's possession. What mattered it to this

leonine warrior if Acre was stoutly manned with

some of Saladin's choicest troops! This known

fact was a spur to Richard's purpose. We are told

that wherever a perilous service was to be per

formed, the war-cry of St. George for England

resounded, and the crest (and, no doubt, the

broom cockade) of the lion-hearted King con

stantly led the battle. The three military Orders

were smitten with a noble envy of his valor, and

rivaled each other in their exertions to be fore

most in every assault. The Templars on one occa

sion lost their Grand-master; and of the Hospi

tallers, so many perished in their incessant con

flicts with the enemy, that the Order would have

been extinguished but for the crowds of young

aspirants arriving from Europe, and who gen

erally gave a preference to the banner of St. John.

After terrible blood-shedding, on July 13, 1191,

Acre was won over by the Christians. But, alas!

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 145

the great fortress was dearly purchased, for it was

computed that more than one hundred thousand

crusaders fell to rise no more. We may properly

ask, was the cause worth such a human sacrifice?

In a military aspect, of course, the test of strength

between the East and the West was a blood-stir

ring drama to stage and enact; but, we may query,

was such man-slaughtering of worth? True

enough, the Latin Church was ready to exclaim,

"It is the will of God!" But as Christians of today,

after reading our Master's recorded words, can we

soberly say such was the will of God?

The Knights of St. John moved their hospital

from the castle of Margat to Acre where they took

up abode after leaving Jerusalem. Richard

marched to the deliverance of Caesarea, Jaffa, and

Ascalon. These cities were speedily repossessed

and winter being at hand, that is, the rainy sea

son, the soldiers became inactive. It appears that

inaction did not produce good results, for certain

leaders busied themselves in sowing dissatisfac

tion in the soldiers, and thousands marched to the

sea-ports and embarked for Europe. As it was

Richard's purpose to retake Jerusalem in the

Spring, he seeing so many crusaders forsaking

Palestine, exclaimed, "Those who are unwilling

to rescue, are unworthy to view the sepulchre of

Christ."

How keenly the lion-hearted King must have

felt in beholding the troops thus turning their

146 A HISTORY OF

backs on captive Jerusalem! Every truly great

man is sure to experience such unfraternal treat

ment. Aspersions are heaped upon him while

living; and after he dies flowers will be placed

on his grave.

After tarrying in Palestine some time after mul

titudes had sailed away, Richard, too, was im

pelled to hasten homeward, for report had reached

him that prince John, his brother, was attempting

to grasp his throne. Before leaving, however, he

gave the island of Cyprus to Isaac's princess

daughter as her marriage dowry, she, by Richard's

planning, having married Jerusalem's professed

king. It appears that Richard had a fondness for

the princess and she for him. He gave to the

Order of St. John his battle-won possessions in

Palestine, thus making the Order a sovereign

institution among the nations. The Order ever

afterward was held as such.

Cceur de Lion—a name given Richard—entered

into negotiations with Saladin, and a singular

timed treaty of peace was agreed to, signatured

by the two monarchs, and all the leading princes,

both Christian and Infidel. The armistice was to

continue for three years, three months, three

weeks, and three days. These important matters

being duly settled, Richard embarked and set sail

for his home-land. It is recorded that as Richard

stood on deck and watched the shore-line of

Palestine receding, he impulsively outstretched

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 147

his hands and exclaimed, "Holiest lands, I com

mend thee to God's keeping, and pray that he may

grant me health to come and rescue thee from

the infidel." But earnest-hearted Coeur de Lion

never returned. A terrific storm wrecked the ship

on the coast of Istria, and the monarch found

himself in more danger on such land than he was

on the raging waters. He knew the enmity of the

Duke of Austria toward him, as also that of the

German Emperor, Philip. However, he disguised

himself, as best he could, and with his faithful

page he started on his dangerous journey. When

they reached Goritz, the king sent his page to the

governor to secure a traveler's passport for "Hugh

the Merchant." Richard gave a valued ring to the

page to give to the greedy official. In doing this

the king was indiscreet, and upon seeing the ring

the Austrian was suspicious. The page hastened

to the King and voiced his well-grounded fears,

and they quickly moved forward. A Norman

Knight was met with, who recognized Richard.

He presented him with a horse, and the King took

cheer. Alas, he was arrested and imprisoned. In

a guarded castle he remained for months, until

his place of confinement was discovered by a

minstrel, a sincere friend of Richard, who had

sought long to find him. By the castle's wall this

man Blondel sang a stanza of a song he knew

Richard loved. After singing it, he listened, and

148 A HISTORY OF

the King's voice was heard singing the following

stanza.

"Say what hast thou brought from the distant shore.

For thy wasted youth to pay?

Hast thou treasure to win thee joys once more?

Hast thou vassals to smooth thy way?"

"I have brought but the palm-branch in my hand,

Yet I call not my bright youth lost;

I have won but high thought in the Holy Land,

Yet I count not too dear the cost."

The news of Richard's imprisonment traveled fast,

and all Europe was stirred, The contemptible

Duke now hurried his prisoner into Germany, and

the German Emperor held him in duress, for

months. In the meantime, the captive's Queen

mother, Eleanor, urgently wrote letters to the

Pope in behalf of her royal son, imploring him to

command his just freedom. But the Pope in such

a cause was dilatory. Queen Eleanor would not

be balked in her righteous plea, and persisted in

writing. It cannot but be interesting to the reader

to peruse one of this mother's letters to the Pope,

hence the author subjoins the following authentic

epistle, "It is now the third time you have prom

ised to send legates to procure the release of my

son. If he were in property, we should see legates

flying upon his first call, in hopes of being well

rewarded by so generous a prince. Do you thus

observe the promise you made us with the strong

est protestations of friendship and affection? Do

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 149

you thus deceive the simple, who put their trust

in you? The most enormous crimes in the great

and the powerful are connived at, and the rigour

of the canons are only exerted against the poor.

One tyrant keeps my son in captivity, while an

other invades and lays waste his dominions; the

one holds, to use a vulgar expression, while the

other flays. This the high pontiff sees, and yet

keeps the sword of St. Peter in its sheath. Have

we not too much reason to construe his silence

into a tacit approbation and consent?" This

letter is dated 1193 A.D. Such has too frequently

been the dilatory method pursued by the Bishops

of Rome throughout the centuries, especially in

matters in and by which there may be a question

whether benefits will accrue to them. This is the

logic of history.

Return we now in our review to Palestine to

scan briefly eventuations which in their passing

compelled the European crusaders to bid farewell

to the Holy Land. It transpired that the famous

warrior, Saladin, outlived Richard but a few

months. A slight wound he had received, gan

grened, while he rested in Damascus, and thus his

end came. An unbiased historian writes as to this

princely Kurd, "A Kurd by nation, and habituated,

from his infancy, to rely for advancement solely

on his sword, he was singularly expert at all war

like exercises—a severe but generous commander,

a just governor, and a humane man; qualities

150 A HISTORY OF

calculated to exalt him to a lofty station in a

country where scarcely any virtue, save that of

sheer valour in war, ever came to maturity . . .

As he lived a hero, so, if his faith be not taken in

judgment against him, did he die a righteous

death. One of the last acts of his life was to order

a considerable sum of money to be given to the

poor of Damascus, without regard to creed; and,

when he felt his end was approaching, an officer,

in compliance with his orders, tore down his war

pennon, and hung up his shroud in its stead, pro

claiming to the populace as he did so, that in that

melancholy garment they beheld all that the

conqueror of the East could carry with him to

the tomb."

Saladin never disregarded any treaty or mutual

compact. This the Europeans had done more

than once. Even King Richard's Truce, signed by

crusade princes, was not allowed to terminate

honorably, as to prescribed time, but was disre

garded and o'erstepped. But, we may well ask,

Of what availment? The answer is, only in

creased blood-shedding. It may have been that

Saladin's sudden death was by the Christians con

sidered proper reason to view the armistice as

void, and as there ensued fratricidal warrings

between his princely sons, after his passing, and,

moreover, his cruel uncle, Saphadin, grasped

sovereign prerogative, the newly arrived crusaders

infringed on the Kurdish monarch's territory.

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 151

A writer has, in this connection, informed his

readers that "the death of Saladin was hailed by

the Latin Christians as a special interposition of

Providence in their behalf." Alas, how senselessly

prone are men to tabulate their own preferences

and desires as bearing the sign-manual of the in

finite God's approved will and decree! Can any

thing be more outrageously inconsistent and

stupidly false? In this connection a brief state

ment as to the death of Richard will, doubtless,

be of historic interest. Richard purchased his

prison release and returned to England. His

scheming brother, John, bent his knees before

him and implored forgiveness. To the Queen

mother Richard said, "I forgive him, and I hope

I may forget the injury he has done me as easily

as I know he will forget my pardon." It appears

that a certain lordly vassal of Richard's, Vidomar

Viscount of Limoges, France, found a treasure

of ancient coins. Richard demanded this as his by

royal right. The Viscount refused to assent to

his monarch's demand, and Richard besieged the

castle of Limoges. While Richard was riding

beneath the castle's walls, a young man named

Bertrand de Gourdon, a skilled archer, shot an

arrow which fatally wounded the king in his

shoulder. While Richard lay suffering, the castle

was stormed and taken, and Bertrand was brought

into the dying king's presence. Looking upon his

enemy, the king said, "Knave, what have I done

152 A HISTORY OF

to thee that thou shouldest take my life?" The

young man replied, "With thine own hands thou

hast killed my father and my two brothers. My

self thou wouldst have hanged. Let me die now, by

any torture thou wilt." Richard heard the con

demning words, and said, "Youth, I forgive thee.

Go unhurt!" Turning to his chief officer, the

king said, "Take off his chains, give him a hun

dred shillings, and let him depart." Such were

the last words of Richard Coeur de Lion, for after

speaking he sank upon his couch and died. Alas!

his generous command was not obeyed by his

officer, for at his death Bertrand de Gourdon was

flayed and brutally hanged. Alas for the cru

saders! Their fortressed city of Jaffa was taken

by assault, and no less than twenty thousand of

their number were butchered.

The Hospital of St. John, throughout these

years of battling and plundering, was located in

Acre, and to show forth their sincere esteem for

the Order, the populace changed the city's name

to "St. John D'Acre." Ever afterward this famous

city went by this name.

The professed King of Jerusalem and Cyprus,

Amaury by name, found the citizens of Cyprus

rebellious, he therefore, asked the Grand-Master

of the Knight Hospitallers to send to Cyprus a

company of Knights to quell the dissatisfied and

quarrelsome natives, mostly Greek by lineage.

This was done, and the Knights established them

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 153

selves in Limisso, the chief city. Far better had

it been if all the true and tried Knights in Acre

had at this initial period located in Cyprus. How

ever, if men of our day required an amazing

surfeit of examples of past-time bravery, heroism,

and self-sacrificing, then, indeed, such a surfeit

was served up by those noble Knights. As they

proved worthy of time-lasting renown, may we

hope that their triumphant souls "go marching

on." As there were established in European

countries, as also in England and Scotland, Hos

pitals and Knight Priories of St. John, the Grand

master at St. John D'Acre recruited his depleted

company, prepared for continued warfare. At

this epoch the Order was at its high-water mark

of real estate possessions. It has been computed

that at this time it claimed by right of indenture

some 19,000 manors, while the Order of the

Temple possessed some 9,000. These small landed

estates were all gifts from the hands of admiring

and heart interested friends. Doubtless it was

true that this proof of preferential regard and

esteem, as possessed at large, between the Order

of St. John and the Templars, went far to cause

envy and malice to enroot in unknightly hearts.

There is a point of history, little, if at all,

touched upon by historical writers, which the in

telligent and unbiased student should fix in mind

relative to the Oriental armies which throughout

those chivalric times warred incessantly against

154 A HISTORY OF

the inroads and onslaughts of the Crusade Euro

peans. It would be distinctly unjust and false to

fact to foster the thought that all the various

armies of the East were in spirit of one mischie

vous and desolating fabric. By no means were

they so. The Moslem Arabians were a class of

men by themselves ; the Kurdish followers of Sala-

din were another; while, lastly, the deluging

swarms of Korasmins, or Tartars, from the shores

of the Caspian Sea, were distinctly another. These

various peoples had little in common between

them, although it is true that the far-flung teach

ings of the famous Arabian had more or less per

colated into their minds, and controlled, in a way,

their religious aspect of life. But, all in all, there

was as great a distinction between them as today

exists between the Irish and the English, or the

New England Indian of 1620, and the Aztec of

Mexico. These various Oriental warriors were

not all savage and cruel in disposition, as biased

Europeans adjudged them to be. In some import

ant aspects they were the equals of the Christian

warriors. In arts, sciences, and letters, they could,

and in fact, did, teach the Europeans many things

hitherto unknown to them. "Give the devil his

due," is equitably proper in our judgment of men.

There lies on the writer's desk, among other

books, a volume of the writings of Persian poets.

While these men lived and wrote five centuries

earlier than Byron, Moore, and Burns, no modern

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 155

poet has surpassed Firdausi, Sadi, Rumi, and

Jami, although these literary adepts, even by

name, are hardly known to westerners. It comes

not amiss for the enlightened student to justly

appraise this phase of historic knowledge. In

much it ever has been men's willing ignorance

of, and, moreover, readiness of mind to misjudge

those who, from every view-point, are their equals,

and, frequently, prove to be their superiors. Often

is it the case that the howl of the wolf is camou

flaged under the bleat of the sheep.

The Latin Church rulers were not content to

have the monarchs of Europe become passive as

to eastern conditions. So long as the crusade

infection remained latent there was but little, if

indeed any, self-sacrificing to be seen, hence to

oppose this indifferent tendency another and still

another crusade enthusiast arose and voiced the

initial cry, "Deus vult!" Let it be noted, however,

that the latter crusaders, led by their kings and

princes, manifested a very loose disposition of

mind and spirit as to who or what people they

outpoured their militant vials upon. Thus it was

that what is set down as the Fifth Crusade, began

war operations to assist the Doge of Venice,

Dandolo, to secure for himself the city of Zara

on the Adriatic coast. Accomplishing with ease

this unprincipled feat of arms, a youthful Greek

Prince came into their midst and earnestly urged

the crusading princes to set sail for Constanti

156 A HISTORY OF

nople and pull from the throne his royal father's

brother, who had villainously dethroned his

parent, throwing him into a dark dungeon after

tearing out his eyes. Of course, great riches were

promised the Latins if they would assist to this

righteous end! The crusaders readily assented

to perform this work, and sailed for the city of

Constantinople. While this was going on Pales

tine was bleeding from the merciless inroads of

the Korasmins, a heathenish race of people. But

it must be observed that all merciless villains were

not housed or tented in the East. Well, the cru

sade army caused the base usurper of a brother's

throne to row across the Bosphoros under cover

of darkness and escape inflicted judgment. The

eyeless Emperor was, together with his son,

placed on his throne, while the imperial diadem

was worn by the youth, as the father was a help

less invalid. Alas for peace and harmony! A

vile monster, Mourzouffe by name, initiated a

revolt in the imperial city, and soon had the

youthful Emperor in a dungeon where the giant

ruffian strangled him to death. Beyond the city

walls the Europeans heard the murderous news,

and a besiegement was on. For three months the

army strove to hammer its way into the city of

Constantine. Mourzouffe and his warriors held

out against the besiegers. At last an escalade

proved successful, and intense hand to hand

fighting ensued. After a full day of conflict the

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 157

ruffian leader fled, leaving behind his standard

and heavy armor. The Latin princes chose one

of themselves to be Emperor of the Greek domin

ions, and the Greek citizens had no voice in the

choice, for in those times "might made right."

The Latin soldiery in Constantinople committed

every form of sacrilege, if the historian Gibbon

has penned truly their conduct.*

All this amazing movement mightily pleased the

Pope of the Latin Church, while, on the other

hand, it was a deep humiliation to the Patriarch

of the Greek Church. But all this action went not

to the cause of Palestine's plight, not in the

smallest degree. However, as we of today scan

the raging doings of those blood-spilling times,

we cannot but ejaculate: what mattered it

whether the killings took place in St. John d'Acre

or the City of Constantine? It ever has been that

men of powerful placing who set about dealing

out justice and executive judgment upon those

whom they vis6 as their inferiors, while in some

* He writes, "the churches were profaned by the

licentiousness and party zeal of the Latins. After

stripping the gems and pearls, they converted the chalices

into drinking cups; their tables, on which they gamed

and feasted, were covered with the pictures of Christ and

the saints. In the cathedral of St. Sophia, the ample veil

of the sanctuary was torn asunder for the sake of the

golden fringe; and the altar, a monument of art and riches,

was broken in pieces and shared among the captors. A

prostitute was seated on the throne of the patriarch; and

that daughter of Belial, as she is styled, sung and danced

in the church, to ridicule the hymns and processions of

the Orientals."

158 A HISTORY OF

enactments they may be just, too frequently prove

themselves to be despotic, sordidly unjust, and,

in fact, enemies of impartial and ennobling justice.

The state of conditions in Palestine remained

the same, if not growing more and more danger

ous and theatening. Deep distrust, in truth, fate

ful enmity was shown by both St. John and

Templar Knights toward and for each other. Not

even the Pope was able to eradicate this virulent

spirit from the Orders, although official effort was

put forth. To mention this historic fact is the

duty of the writer, however much he deplores the

fact. The Fifth Crusade ended with its purpose

unachieved; a sixth militant uprising under the

command of John de Brienne, a real knightly

warrior, was forthwith launched. To place him

in full prominence he was married to the so-called

Queen of Jerusalem. Noting the helplessness and

pressing danger of the Christians who tarried in

the few fortressed cities of Palestine, Brienne

implored Pope Innocent III to bestir the European

monarchs to engage in another crusade. The

Pope was quite willing to do so, hence a general

council was held in Rome. Innocent emulated the

example of his predecessor, Urban II, and elo

quently voiced the need of Palestine and the Holy

City. The old cry, "Deus Vult!" again resounded.

It appears that the Pope was afraid of the terri

torial power of the German Emperor, Frederic,

for he considered that the Emperor encroached

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 159

on his Italian states. To Innocent's mind Frederic

was dilatory as to embarking with his army and

knights, although he had vowed to engage in the

movement. The Pope attempted to hurry away

the royal German, but he stoutly refused to be

dictated to by the Pope. We pause to query:

where is he who possesses warm red blood cours

ing in his veins, and who prizes the consciousness

that he is a free man, who will condemn Frederic

for his refusal to up and away at the behest of a

fellow mortal? However, we are told that "priestly

craft achieved what reproaches could not com

pass. It was proposed that, being a widower, he

should marry Violante, only daughter and heiress

of the King of Jerusalem." Thus it was that the

magnetic pull of a woman to marital bonds, was

more powerful than the Pope's commanding

utterances. The Emperor agreed to embark in

two years, as he required such time to rightly

prepare, as also settle sovereign affairs in Europe.

When the years passed, he wrote the Pope his

need of some time extension. Such was agreed

to, seeing he had married Violante. At last he

embarked, which much pleased the troubled Pope.

But, alas! when not far on the sea, Frederic be

came quite ill,—a mal-de-mer, perhaps,—and he

returned to the port of Tarento. The up-shot

was, the Emperor was excommunicated from the

Church as an unholy reprobate. This was a

serious blow to Frederic, and regaining normal

160 A HISTORY OF

health, he again embarked as a crusader, with

forty thousand men, but the Pope was determined

to subdue or crush him. An envoy was speeded

away to St. John d'Acre to inform the Knights,

as also people, that he was outside the Christian

Church. The Emperor arrived in Palestine before

the envoy, and the Christians rejoiced in his pow

erful presence ; but when the envoy appeared, and

the excommunication was known all the Knights

but the Teutonic stood aloof from him. But the

sturdy Frederic moved forward, bent on Jeru

salem's liberation, and though the two Orders

felt subject to the Pope's decree, they could not

see the Emperor's army moving without mounting

their horses and following in the rear. It was

well they did, for they found much to do in beat

ing off the harassing enemy. Frederic in magnifi

cent assault snatched the Holy City from the

Turkoman force within, as also other fortresses

yielded to his power.* But while Frederic was

striking the foe in Palestine, the Pope in Europe

was bringing troops into his dominions to tear

to pieces his imperial sovereignty. The reader

can judge who of the two sovereigns was the

sincerest crusader. By previous agreement, Jeru

salem's crown was to be worn by Frederic, and

• The Emperor entered Jerusalem March 17, 1229. He

signed a treaty of peace with the Sultan for ten years

from the date of entrance. This treaty, like Richard's,

was broken by the Europeans, to their own utter undoing

and banishment.

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 161

he had won it. However, the Church Patriarch

refused to coronate him, so he himself took the

emblem in hand, and, handing it to the Grand

master of the Teutonic Knights, the latter placed

it on his head as lawful King of Jerusalem. After

some time, Frederic embarked for Europe, and

upon his arrival, the Pope hurled a bull against

him, declaring therein that in the name of God

all his subjects were freed from his authority.

This was too much for the persecuted Emperor to

endure, so he had no other alternative than to

throw himself on the mercy of his powerful

enemy. A huge payment of monies was levied

to his account, viz., 100,000 ounces of gold. This

he paid in full, and the Church's curse was de

clared null and void. It will be proper, in connec

tion with this brief historic survey, to query: who

of these two men hindered the emancipation of

Palestine? Had the two stalwart Orders felt free

to throw their full fighting strength into the bal

ance with Frederic, as they had some years before

with Richard, of a certainty much more effective

results would have been accomplished. Granted

that the Emperor was headstrong, was there not

another than he, who, if history be authentic,

possessed a full measure of this ingredient? All

in all, if any living man inherits sovereign pre

rogative, it roots in an impartial and untainted

man-to-man equity and unselfishly balanced

justice. The autocrat—whether political or relig

162 A HISTORY OF

ious—is in make-up a bi-product from selfish in

gredient. Jesus the Nazarene was in no way or

measure a quarreler with the kings of earth, nor

did he delegate his disciples to do so. Surely it is

of moment to take note of this fact.

At this epoch the Order of St. John was

throughout Europe at the high-water mark of

wealth in landed estates, as also in man power.

Its numerous hospitals, constituting priories, were

depots from whence the parent Priory in Palestine

drew recruits for constant warfare.

The Seventh Crusade succeeded the conquests

and adventures of Frederic, and we are credibly

informed that "among others, there went from the

house of the Order in Clerkenwell, London, three-

hundred knights, preceded by Theoderic their

prior, at the head of a considerable body of armed

stipendaries. They marched with the banner of

St. John unfurled before them ; and as they passed

over London Bridge, saluted, with hood in hand,

the crowds who congregated to see them depart...

As to the Chapel or House of Clerkenwell, London,

it was founded in the twelfth century, and dedi

cated by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, when

he visited England as ambassador in 1115. It was

the principal house of the Order in England."

Alas! few, if any, of the Anglo-Saxon Knights

returned to their home-land.

Some fifteen years passed by from the day that

Frederick had entered Jerusalem, and in their

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 163

passing the treaty of peace had been disregarded

by the Christians. This fact stirred the Sultan

to secretly invite the Korasmin leader to sweep

down upon Jerusalem and destroy the Latins.

The Christian Orders, by some means, found out

the secret pact, and enjoined the citizens to flee

to Jaffa on the near coast. But many of the

people imposed faith in the battling strength of

the brave knights of the Cross, and ignored the

warning word. Alas! such citizens as remained— •

and they were many—were shortly hacked to

pieces by the merciless enemy. Jerusalem was

stormed, entered, and utterly despoiled. The

Orders quickly recruited their shattered ranks,

and shortly after faced the cruel foe near the city

of Gaza. Though their valor was glorious, and

their blows death-dealing, they were outnumbered

twenty to one, their brutal adversaries laughed

at death, and pressed them to defeat. We are

told that "the Grandmasters of the Hospital and

Temple, and the Commander of the Teutonic

Order, were all slain, and there escaped from the

sword of captivity only thirty-three Templars,

sixteen Hospitallers, and three Teutonic knights."

Thus fell Jerusalem, after streams of European

blood crimsoned the soil of Palestine.

As if Providence interposed to save the remnant

of Christians who remained in St. John d'Acre, a

fierce fratricidal feud suddenly ensued in the army

164 A HISTORY OF

of the Korasmins, and, like destructive locusts,

they swept away.

After these tragic events, another crusade to

slay the Infidel was initiated by King Louis IX of

France. His consort being seriously ill, he vowed

if she recovered he in person would lead an army

against the Infidel. As she regained her health,

Louis began to prepare to make good his vow by

recruiting sixty thousand fighting men. When all

was orderly arranged, the King embarked his

army on 180 vessels and pointed his course for

Cyprus. Though Henry III of England agreed to

head an army together with Louis, he failed to

go in person, but a valiant warrior, William Long-

sword, embarked with a strong company of

knights in his stead. This company joined arms

with the French at Cyprus, and also the two

Orders of brave knights were quick to join the new

adventure. After some time spent on the island,

the army embarked for Egypt, determined to

strike the Sultan lion—or, dragon,—in his very

den. The city of Damietta was easily stormed,

and dropped like a ripened apple into hand. The

Europeans moved onward, finding the rich coun

try depopulated, and, strangely enough, not a

Moslem warrior in sight. Veteran knights were

suspicious as to what this void did portend, but

galloped onward in the van. The upshot was, the

astute leader of the Moslem forces was weaving

a web in which to entrap the proud Louis and his

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 165

army. In this he succeeded to the utter defeat

and blasting of the western leader's ambition and

purpose. The food rations of the army failed, and

in the many sluggish water-ways the soldiers

caught thousands of eels and converted them into

food. Alas, they but poisoned their blood, for

these eels had been fattening on the putrid

corpses of men who had been slain by the crusad

ers' swords in and around Damietta. Such

poisonous food produced a plague which depleted

their ranks by thousands, and when they came

face to face with the Moslem soldiery, their defeat

was inevitable. It appears that the heady Count

of Artois disapproved of the plan of action voiced

by William Longsword, the English knight, and

exclaimed sneeringly, "Behold the cowardice of

these longtails!" To this Longsword replied, "I

will go so far into danger, that you Will not even

dare to touch my horse's tail." And, indeed, this

brave English knight did this, and died with his

face to the foe, and his blood-dripping sword in

hand, while this conceited Count was taken a cap

tive, together with King Louis and his gentry.

Almost every St. John knight, as also those of the

Temple, fell in death, preferring death to humiliat

ing imprisonment. The Sultan levied a ransom

of 800,000 besants (£16,000) on Louis and his

men, which great liberating sum the King bor

rowed from the two Orders. A treaty of peace

166 A HISTORY OF

was duly signed, and Louis set sail for St. John

d'Acre. He remained in Palestine some time, then

re-embarked for Europe.

Still another crusade was launched by the Eng

lish and the French in 1270. The French King

planned to strike the Moslems on the African

coast at Tunis and Carthage. The plan was

suicidal to Louis and many of his men, for a pes

tilence swept upon them, and the ambitious King

became one of its first victims. This French mon

arch was canonized into a Saint by Pope Boniface

VIII, and today one of America's great cities bears

his name, "St. Louis." Prince Edward of England

sailed for Palestine with seven thousand men.

The Orders of Knights joined with him, and some

minor successes followed. At Jaffa the Prince

was taken sick, and while lying on his couch, a

Moslem came desiring an interview with him,

saying he had very important news to communi

cate. The interview was granted, and in conver

sation with Edward, the base assassin suddenly

drew his dagger and stabbed the prince, yet not

fatally. The prince sprang up, and floored the

assassin, and forcing the weapon out of his grasp,

plunged it into his enemy's heart. The story

went that Queen Eleanor sucked the poison from

the wound. As to this, a quaint English writer

remarks, "It is showed how Eleanor, his wife,

sucked all the poison out of the king's wound

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 167

without doing any harm to herself: so sovereign

a remedy is a woman's tongue, anointed with the

virtue of loving affection." Edward recovered

from both wound and illness, and returned to

England. The King, his father, having died while

he was sailing homeward, upon his arrival he was

crowned King.

The last crusade host had gone to Palestine,

although, as usual, the reigning Pope put forth

an effort to interest anew the monarchs. The

effort was futile, as, indeed, any continued effort

was senselessly inconsistent. The Europeans who

remained in Palestine resorted to the double-

walled city of St. John d'Acre for safety. But the

Egyptian Sultan determined upon utterly outroot-

ing the Europeans from Syria, and Palestine.

He was well assured that so long as they were

subject to the Latin Church's Bishop there could

ensue no peace. As to this, he judged rightly.

Antioch was first enveloped by a mighty army of

Mamalukes, and speedily fell to the Sultan. In

its taking, seventeen thousand citizens were

slaughtered, and one hundred thousand taken

captive, to become slaves. After Antioch's over

throw, a mighty army of sixty thousand horse

men, and one hundred and forty thousand

infantry, pressed forward to the walls of Acre.

Sadly true it was that this fortressed city was rife

with every unspeakable immorality. Licentious

168 A HISTORY OF

debauches, it appears, had taken up residence in

the fated city, as if it was Heaven's will to use

the enemy to rid the earth of such human vermin.

The Knights of the three Orders strove to stay

the unholy proceedings, but to little avail. Within

the fortress there were twelve thousand knights,

and they determined to repel the mighty enemy

or die in the city's defence. No mortal pen can

set forth the horrors of the drawn-out deathly

struggle. The hot air became tainted with the

odor from putrifying bodies, both without and

within the walls. At last the Sultan's miners

burrowed beneath the mighty stone towers, and

one after the other fell, burying deeply hundreds

of valiant knights who had manned them. As

to the tragic ending of the Latin power in Pales

tine in the fall of St. John d'Acre, the words of

a crusade historian will be submitted as a proper

ending of this dramatic chapter. "Sixty thousand

persons perished within the walls, or were carried

into slavery; and the Sultan, to annihilate forever

the hopes of the Christians of effecting a new

settlement on the Syrian shore, razed the forti

fications of every city on the coast. Thus termi

nated, in blood and desolation, a war, which had

lasted, with little interruption, for one hundred

and ninety-four years, and which retains the

appelation of 'Holy' to this day;—a war," says the

chronicler, "for continuance the longest, for

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 169

money spent the costliest, for bloodshed the

cruelest, for pretences the most pious, for the true

intent the most politic, the world ever saw."

After Acre's fall, those few knights who sur

vived embarked for Cyprus. In our survey we

will, in the ensuing chapter, follow the battle-

scarred heroes.

CHAPTER VIII

THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN AT CYPRUS AND RHODES

"And on his breast a bloodie crosse he bore.

The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,

For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore.

And dead, as living, ever Him adored.

Upon his shield the like was also scored.

For sovereign hope which in his help he had;

Right faithful true he was in deed and word."

BEFORE the reader's attention be called to con

sider the stirring movements of the Knights

Hospitallers apart and away from Palestine, the

writer deems it of interest to the reader to state

briefly that in very little were the Latins of Europe

benefited by years of contact with Eastern peoples.

Not because they might not have been, but rather

because they chose to remain ignorant of much

in which the Orientals were far in advance of

them. In much they were stupidly purblinded by

their servile devotion to their religious lords.

Thus it ever was and is that

He who's convinced against his will.

Is of the same opinion still.

A profound scholar in writing as to the mental

status of the Latins, Greeks, and Arabians, re

marks, "If we compare, at the era of the crusades,

the Latins of Europe with the Greeks and Arab

ians, their respective degrees of knowledge, in

170

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 171

dustry, and art, our rude ancestors must be

content with the third rank in the scale of na

tions." We ask: is it justice to Christianity to

declare that mental virility and breadth, together

with that which means refinement, must be the

fruit of other teaching than that of the school of

Jesus the divine Master? Clearly, to the writer of

this treatise, such tones not of justice or properly

imposed merit. If indeed the precious diamond

be buried from men's admiring vision, and in its

place a paste bauble be held up to sight, if then

the pretentious baked thing be proved to be in

ferior in prismatic radiation to others, it would

but dishonor the buried diamond to hold that the

counterfeit stone, however resplendent its setting,

must be recognized as the true original. We are

further told that "in a reign of sixty years, the

Latins of Constantinople disdained the speech and

learning of their subjects; and the manuscripts

were the only treasures which the natives might

enjoy without rapine or envy." Need it be re

marked that the greatest bane of mankind, in

every land, is mental enslavement to the teachings

of weedy superstitions? However, it is a cheering

fact that there inheres in the souls of men a

diviner light and principle, which, in a measurable

degree, o'erbounds all benighting thoughts, and

makes to heroism, to nobility of conduct, in truth,

makes the gentleman. So have we found of the

past; so it is of to-day.

172 A HISTORY OF

When St. John d'Acre fell Into the Sultan's

grasp, the remnant of valiant knights, as has

already been stated, sailed for Cyprus taking with

them all the archives of the Order. The King of

Cyprus had been in St. John d'Acre, he and his

soldiers, assisting in the deathly struggle, but to

his discredit, under cover of dark night he had

deserted the defenders and sailed homeward.

Upon the arrival of the few war-wounded veteran

knights of the two Orders, he was graciously kind

and obliging, and in generous behaviour gave to

them the city of Limmisa as a dwelling place.

The few Teutonic knights who escaped from

Mamaluke butchery embarked for Germany where

they found true friendship and good cheer. The

Hospitaller Commander, brave John d'Villiers,

despatched letters to all the Priories of Europe to

send at once recruits to Cyprus. His orders were

promptly acceded to, and soon he had all the

knights he required for future movement and

using. This fact, it appears, was noted by the

King of Cyprus, and his greedy disposition, in

union with suspicious fears, led him to deny the

Grand-Master the privilege of purchasing any

Cyprus real estate. Not only so, but he had the

audacity to levy a poll-tax on the Order's mem

bers. The fruit of all such tyranny ripened

speedily. His Cyprian citizens initiated a revolt,

and the King was made a prisoner. To rid the

island of him, they deported him to Cilicia in Asia

I I

I

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 173

Minor. The exiled monarch's brother was en

throned in his seat, yet he had no more than taken

authority when he was stabbed through the heart

by a political friend of the deposed exile. Truly

did the pen of Shakespeare write:—

Princes have but their titles for their glories,

And outward honor for and inward toil.

Strange and inconsistent as it may appear to

the reader, it is nevertheless historic fact that the

man who was Pope at this time, Boniface VIII,

received an envoy from the Mogul Prince, a Tar

tar chieftain, who was an enemy of the Sultan,

asking the Pope to raise an army as an ally of

his own, and thus together crush the Sultan's

power. The Tartar Prince agreed to give the

Pope full possession of Palestine and Syria. The

Pope coveted this enriching prize, hence, being

an autocratic man in temperament, he sent King

Philip of France a command to recruit at once a

large army for crusade enterprise. Philip sourly

dissented, and dismissed the Pope's nuncio from

his presence. This, of course, could not be coun

tenanced by Peter's professed successor, hence a

quarrel was on. As the Order of the Templars

was more powerful in France than elsewhere in

Europe, and, moreover, as both knighthood Orders

were subject to the Pope, Philip surmised that the

Templars were hand-in-glove with Boniface in his

autocratic demand, hence hate took deep root in

174 A HISTORY OF

his heart toward the enriched Order. This Pope

died shortly after this rupture, and Philip played

Church politics by having a leading cleric secretly

agree to his purpose and plan, if the influence

of the King would place him in Peter's seat. This

cleric won out, and he took the name of Clement

the Fifth.* Becoming Pope, he despatched letters

to the Grand-masters of both Orders to appear

speedily in their persons before him for an inter

view of importance, viz., the coalescing of the

Orders into one, as also a possible movement

against the Infidel. It appears that the Grand

master of the Hospitallers had misgivings that all

was not revealed or set forth, for with other words

the Pope wrote, "come speedily, with as much

secrecy as possible, and witn a small retinue."

Grand-master Villiers was aboard his galley when

the Pope's envoy reached him, and having in mind

great plans for his Order's future, he felt no desire

to set sail for Europe, hence he wrote the Pope

to excuse him for the time from breaking away

from urgent duties which demanded his time and

mind. At the same time he addressed a fraternal

* In corroboration of what the author has stated, he

submits the like statement from the learned author of the

book, "The Knights Templars," Sir C. G. Addison. He

writes, "he (Philip) succeeded, through the intrigues of

the French Cardinal DuprS, in raising the Archbishop of

Bordeaux, a creature of his own, to the pontifical chair.

The new Pope removed the Holy See from Rome to Prance.

Of the ten new Cardinals created, nine were Frenchmen,

and in all his acts the new Pope manifested himself the

obedient slave of the French monarch."

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 175

Is Pop letter to the Grand-master of the Templars,

plaj! Jacques de Molai, urging him to remain and join

ecretf arms with him in capturing the beautiful island of

luenff Rhodes, as this, of all things, appeared to him

Tie to be the important conquest to achieve. Molai

em* by letter thanked Villiers, and concluding his reply

ettec wrote, "We have both our duties, and you must

ppea" cleave to your knights, and I to mine. Yet all

ntfr you say affects me. No doubt of wealth and

1 tlf honor; but what are they to produce? Farewell."

necl This was a fateful choosing on the part of the

and' Templar Grand-master, not only for himself, but

taJ for his valorous Order. He forthwith sailed from

iflt Cyprus with his knights, carrying with him

iici 150,000 florins of gold, together with a vast

e amount of silver money, the whole requiring

ies twelve horses to carry. Very unwisely did the

ti Grand-master deposit this metallic wealth in the

rt Temple in Paris. Little did Molai dream of the

je atrocious and deadly plot which the impious King,

; seconded by his heartless minions, was secretly

d hatching to the Order's destruction, as also the

i terrible deaths of himself and his brave compan

ions in arms. But so it was. The writer will not

dwell in any full way upon the voracious cupidity,

infamous craft, and merciless enactments of the

French king and his basely unholy minions, both

of Church and State. Suffice it to say that on

October 13, 1307, all Knights of the Temple in

France were arrested, and 900 were immured in

176 A HISTORY OF

prisons. No less than 140 knights were put to the

torture in Paris, and thirty-six of the sufferers

died. After spending five years in a dungeon,

Jacques de Molai, the noble Grand-master of an

illustrious Order, together with a company of his

eminent Companions, suffered death by fire at the

will of their traducers. When chained to the stake

of burning, the Grand-master exclaimed, "The

decree which condemns us is an unjust decree,

but in heaven there is an august tribunal to which

the weak never appeal in vain. To that tribunal

within forty days I summon the Roman Pontiff."

A violent shudder ran through the crowd, but the

Grand-master continued, "0 Philip, my master,

my King! I pardon thee in vain, for thy life is

condemned. At the tribunal of God, within a

year, I await thee." Startling the historic fact

that both Pope and King died shortly after this

appalling tragedy!

Return we now to our study of the Knights

Hospitallers in Cyprus. Such an Order of intrepid

men could not endure to remain in inaction, con

tent to hold and luxuriate on the vast properties

possessed in Europe. If the knights had con

cluded to do this, putrifaction would have speedily

ensued, for nothing is more potent for baleful

effects than human indolency. The knowledge

as to the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem having

passed away did not deter Europeans from per

sisting in pilgrimaging. It was to many, doubt

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 177

less, a good way to declare life riddance of home

unpleasantnesses, and, it may be, legitimate debts

contracted. To thus become "a pilgrim" wiped

the slate clean. Though the dangers of such jour

neying had not lessened by the over-land route,

the Grand-Master of the Hospitallers had in the

meantime fitted up the Order's galleys as trans

ports and engaged them in carrying pilgrims be

tween Italian ports and the Syrian shores. While

thus engaged, the Knights learned that a vicious

swarm of corsair galleys were ploughing the sea,

intent on robbery and murder. The Grand-

Master's own galley had been considered a prize

worth taking, but in the naval encounter the

knights had bested the pirate enemy. Here, then,

was stirring enterprise for the Order, hence whole

heartedly the brave knights sprang to their work

on the seas. The Order could not with satisfac

tory ease of mind remain long on the island of

Cyprus. As men whose spirits disdained mean

nesses of over-bearing conduct they, as a sover

eign Order by legal right, felt the need of a

territorial home, freed from sordid interferers.

Thus it was that in the Grand-Master's sailings,

to and fro, he had often gazed with delight upon

the charming island of Rhodes. He had informed

himself as to its history. Not only so, but as a

writer has penned, "Rhodes, from its proximity to

Palestine, and the excellence of its port, was the

point to which their views were ultimately

178 A HISTORY OF

directed. That island was, at that time, inhabited

partly by Greeks, and partly by Turks and Sara

cens, whose corsairs the native princes openly

sheltered from the pursuit of the Christian

galleys." Grand-Master Villiers having died,

William de Villaret was chosen to fill the very

responsible office. He heartily entered into the

well-planned enterprise which his wise prede

cessor had conceived. Letters were sent to the

various Priories of Europe as to a very important

undertaking about to be launched, hence those

of brawn and nerve who were willing to serve the

Order, in life or death, were called upon to report

in person at the Italian port of Brundusium. A

few princes, as also the Pope, was made knowing

as to the purpose in mind, and hearty acquiesc

ence prevailed. As a prophecy of success the

Grand-Master pleasingly found when his trans

ports sailed into Brundusium that there were

awaiting his arrival a two-thirds over-plus of

fighting men. Taking, however, as many as space

and wisdom warranted, the fleet sailed out of port

early in the spring of the year 1308. As far as

the soldiery aboard, both knights and military

citizens, were concerned, the fleet was sailing

under sealed orders, although all had in mind the

storming of some eastern port as a new crusade

movement. When the real purpose of the expe

dition was voiced to them, there ensued no

whisper of dissatisfaction: all alike were pleased.

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 179

In this connection a brief description of Rhodes

will be enlightening. "It is about one hundred

and twenty miles in circumference, and divided

from the continent of Asia Minor by a channel

twenty miles broad. The climate is delicious:—

the summer being free from intense heat, and the

winter mild and humid. The soil is singularly

fertile, and produces fruits in abundance. Wild

roses hang around the base of the rocks; beds

of flowering myrrh perfume the air; and tufts of

laurel-roses adorn the banks of the rivulets with

their gaudy flowers." Sailing to Cyprus, the fleet

took on board all the knights stationed there,

together with the property and archives of the

Order. Thus it was a glad farewell to Cyprus

forever, and its sordid king. From Cyprus the

fleet sailed to the coast of Lycia and anchored, to

await the arrival of certain spies whom the Grand-

Master had prudently sent to Rhodes to secure

information as to the most vulnerable vantage

point to land his forces, as also to discover the

possible strength of opposition which would have

to be overcome. When the spies arrived, the fleet

sailed out to sea and trimmed its sails towards

Rhodes. Greatly were the natives of the fair

island surprised at the great fleet's sudden appear

ance, and the quick disembarkment that followed.

However, surprise soon gave place to wrath, and

the struggle for mastery was on. The Greek

Emperor at Constantinople soon heard of this

180 A HISTORY OF

bold and as he considered it, piratical, landing

upon his territorial claim, hence he despatched

a powerful body of troops to co-operate with the

Rhodians to beat back to sea the Latin intruders.

Now the aggressors had their warring mettle put

to the test, for skirmish followed skirmish, while

days of struggle lengthened into two full years,

in the passing of which hundreds of both con

tending soldiery were slain, as also other hundreds

of the Latins deserted—not, indeed, the Hospi

taller knights—and surreptitiously sailed home

ward. Grand-master Villaret, however was de

termined to have and to hold the Island of Rhodes

or leave his corpse—like others of his death-

struck companions—upon its soil. At last he

chose to strike at the city of Rhodes, a city of

old historic wealth and renown. But the posses

sion of the city was no easy task to accomplish,

for a desperate conflict soon ensued which, for a

long time, continued. As to this conflict we are

told by the historian that "the Grand-master be

held the bravest of his knights hewn down before

his eyes; but victory ultimately declared for his

banner; and the Saracens, totally routed, threw

themselves into their galleys, and carried to the

Lycian shore, and the islands of the Archipelago,

the first news of their defeat. Availing himself

of the panic this event occasioned among the

troops that garrisoned the city, the Grand-master

stormed the outworks. Amid a shower of arrows

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 181

and other destructive missiles, his knights gained

the breach, and on the 15th of August, 1310,

planted the standard of the Order permanently

on its walls."

After the taking of the city of Rhodes, and the

subjugation of the island's citizen population, the

Grand-master manned his galleys and sailed to

achieve conquests in other places. In this expedi

tion he brought under the Order's power the small

islands of Nisara, Lero, Calamo, Episcopia, Chalce,

Simia, Tilo, and Cos. The last mentioned was

the greatest value of the number, and to the Order

was an important possession. It has been a

matter of surprise to the author of this treatise

to discover in his extensive researches that the

monumental history of Edward Gibbon sets forth

but an exceedingly brief allusion to the Knights

of St. John, known as the Knights of Rhodes,

after the Order fixed its chief residence on the

beautiful island. But that which this great writer

has penned regarding its long continued residence

tones not disparagingly. Writing as to the sub

jugation of various countries to the enslaving

power of the Ottoman Turks, Gibbon declares,

"The servitude of Rhodes was delayed two cen

turies by the establishment of the Knights of St.

John of Jerusalem; under the discipline of the

Order, that island emerged into fame and opu

lence; the noble and warlike monks were

renowned by land and sea, and the bulwarks of

182 A HISTORY OF

Christendom provoked, and repelled, the arms of

the Turks and Saracens." True and laudatory

though the words of the great historian ring,

every student of history has learned that it is

not a strong qualification of human nature to

retain consistent poise when a whole park of

praises is shot at him or them. Man glorification,

as a general thing, is more effective in deteriorat

ing than in enhancing the worthiness of him or

them who receive the glory. Many a man has

been irreparably side-tracked into the pestilent

bog of vain conceit by seductive flattery. All

Europe rang with loud acclaim of glory and praise

to the Knights of St. John for their illustrious

achievement; and, moreover, on the other hand,

the sterling, chivalric, and fighting deeds of the

Knights of the Temple were ignored, and their

Order defamed, despoiled, and destroyed. At a

council of Pope and bishops in 1311, the disposi

tion of the Templars' property was that "the con

fiscated property should be consecrated to the

defence of the holy places (a very elastic and

indefinite phrase), and that the Knights of Rhodes

should have the unrestrained administration of

it." Now from the mental viewpoint of the writer

of this historic sketch, it would have been emi

nently consistent had the Grand-master of the

Order of St. John peremptorily refused to enact

any part in the property using or holding. As

the entire tragedy from its hate-hatched inception

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 183

reeked with wickedness, this vote as to "unre

strained administration" deserved absolute rejec

tion, as also denouncement as an insult to the

Order of St. John. But such was not done, for the

reason, perhaps, that the Christian conscience

was much smudged and atrophied in those

property-stealing times, times when professed

Christians were notorious despoilers of the rights

of their fellow-men.

This enclothement with increased properties, in

a double measure, could not do else than work

detrimentally to the morally wholesome code and

meritorious discipline of the Order. History

clearly avers that such a deterioration ensued

shortly following what has been narrated. We

read, "The vast accession of wealth, conjoined

with the conquest of Rhodes, raised the Order of

St. John to a degree of splendor and renown which

no military fraternity had ever before attained.

But increase of revenue, and of popular acclaim,

had a blighting influence on those very virtues

which had led to this pre-eminence. Europe

poured the younger sons of its aristocracy into

the White Cross ranks; and with these high-born

aspirants for knightly honours, came pride and

luxury, and arrogance and disunion—the very sins

that had prostrated the Templars in the dust.

The statute enforcing community of property was

permitted to become obsolete—while the younger

knights, regarding valiant deeds on the deck of

184 A HISTORY OF

their wax-galleys as the only duties imperatively

required of them, squandered, in gaming and de

bauchery the spoil which they tore from the Infi

dels on the waves."

By painstaking research the student who scans

the degenerate times of European history, espe

cially of the Order of St. John, cannot do else than

place the blame for laxity of morals and disre

spect for the Order's statutes upon the Grand

master, Villaret. Hardly would it have been pos

sible for a Mogul chieftain or a Moslem Sultan

to outvie him in luxurious living. Nothing of the

mind and spirit which actuated and controlled the

Order's earlier Masters was shown by him. His

example was in every way injurious to the youth

ful knights, and the older veterans who openly

protested against violating conditions were

accounted testy babblers. Such a lawless spirit

brought its own revolting reward. The loose

living of the Knights of Rhodes—the name which

the Pope now gave them—began to be much

talked about in Europe, and, knowing this, the

knights who loved the Order and valued its illus

trious reputation rebelled against Villaret, and he

slipped away out of the city to a fortress castle

some leagues distant, and there surrounded by

knights of like desires, bade defiance to all others.

As such a state of affairs was suicidal to the Order,

the Pope was appealed to as a last resort, and he

with politic alacrity took the matter in hand.

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 185

He sent a message to Villaret to come to him and

make known to him his side of the serious dissen

sion and revolt. Villaret obeyed the Pope's

summons, and a council was held. The result

was that in name Villaret to his life's close should

retain the title, Grand-master, yet a competent

knight should at Rhodes fill the office, yet in no

way subject to Villaret's prerogative or interfer

ence. Moreover, Villaret should not tarry at

Rhodes, but reside in a priory in Europe, with all

the comforts of life. Thus the reader can see

how this man filled the position of a modern

pastor-emeritus, as duly recognized in some church

bodies. Now the astute Pope did not conclude his

arranging and rectifying with the placing of

Villaret where his influence was null, but he set

forth that at Villaret's death the Pope should

choose his successor to the office of Grand-master.

This was a papal encroachment upon the Order's

original statute. If assented to it would make

the famous Order a mere puppet of the Pope's

rule and possession. Prudent knights opposed

this scheme of action on the clear ground that

the statutes of the Order forbade it, and, besides,

the sovereignty of the Order disallowed outside

jurisdiction and authority. The Pope knew all

this, yet he did not hesitate to nullify statutes if

in doing so he could increase his own power over

institutions, however foundationed they were.

Though he did not press the matter to official

186 A HISTORY OF

demand, he astutely stated his preference of a

knight to fill the position in Rhodes in the life-time

of Villaret. The knights in conclave assented to

the Pope's choice, Helion de Villeneuve. This

man was, of course, extremely pleased with the

Pope's spoken regard toward him, and about the

first official act he performed was to present the

Pope a landed possession near Cahors which, it

appears, was much desired by the Holy Father

of Christendom. Villeneuve, however, creditably

set about rectifying flagrant abuses in the Order,

as the records attest. We are told that "it was

ultimately decreed that a certain term of actual

residence in Rhodes, and the performance of a

definite number of caravans (as the voyages

aboard their galleys were called), should be an

absolute requirement to qualify a Knight for

holding any official post or dignity whatsoever."

Certainly this was a proper and wise ruling. It

worked to the Order's healthy benefit then, and

some such modern ruling would work most bene

ficially and needfully today. It is not of wisdom

or servicable worth to press a round peg in a

square hole, or a square peg in a round hole.

While it is no difficult act to robe an illiterate and

mind-stupid fellow in a king's attire, it neverthe

less is impossible for such an enrobed fellow to

prove his kingly worthiness.

In the passing years of Villeneuve's official in

cumbency, the popular story of a knight of

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 187

Rhodes slaying a hideous dragon gained credence

and circulation. As the reader may be interested

to read all that can be said as to the slaying, the

following account is submitted. "A huge serpent,

or crocodile, for it is described as an amphibious

animal, had taken up its abode in a cavern on

the brink of a marsh situated at the base of Mount

Saint Stephen, about two miles from the city,

from whence it sallied forth frequently in search

of prey. Not only cattle, but even men, became

its victims; and the whole island trembled at its

voracity. Knight after knight, ambitious of the

renown of slaying such a monster, stole singly

and secretly to its haunt, and never returned.

The creature was covered with scales, which were

proof against the keenest arrows and darts; and

at length the Grand-master held it his duty to

forbid his knights from courting so unequal an

encounter. Deodato de Gozon, a knight of the

language of Provence, alone failed to respect this

prohibition, and resolved to deliver the island from

the monster, or perish. Having often reconnoitred

the beast from a distance, he constructed a model

of it of wood or pasteboard, and habituated two

young bull-dogs to throw themselves under its

belly, on a certain cry being given, while he him

self, mounted and clad in armor, assailed it with

his lance. Having perfected his arrangements,

he bestrode his charger, and rode down privately

into the marsh, leaving several confidential

188 A HISTORY OF

attendants stationed in a spot from whence they

could behold the conflict. The monster no sooner

beheld him approach, than it ran, with open

mouth and eyes darting fire, to devour him.

Gozon charged it with his lance, but the impene

trable scales turned aside the weapon; and his

steed, terrified at the fierce hissing and

abominable affluvium of the creature, became so

ungovernable that he had to dismount and trust

to his good sword and his dogs. But the scales

of the monster were as proof against his falchion

as his lance. With a slap of its tail it dashed him

to the earth, and was just opening its voracious

jaws to devour him, helmet, hauberk, spurs and

all, when his faithful dogs gripped it tightly with

their teeth in a vulnerable part of the belly. On

this, the knight quickly sprang to his feet, and

thrust his sword up to the hilt in a place which

had no scales to defend it. The monster, rearing

itself in agony, fell with a tremendous hiss on the,

knight, and again prostrated him in the dust; and

though it instantly gasped its last, so prodigious

was its size, that Gozon would have been squeezed

to death, had not his attendants, seeing the object

of their terror deprived of life, made haste to his

assistance. They found their master in a swoon ;

but after they had with great difficulty drawn him

from under the serpent, he began to breathe

again, and speedily recovered. The fame of this

achievement being bruited in the city, a multitude

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 189

of people hurried forth to meet him. He was con

ducted in triumph to the Grand-master's palace;

but that dignitary, heedless of popular acclama

tion, sternly demanded wherefore he had violated

his orders, and commanded him to be carried to

prison. At a subsequent meeting of the Council,

he proposed that the culprit should atone for his

disobedience with his life; but this severe sentence

was mitigated to a deprivation of the habit of the

Order. To this degradation he was forced to sub

mit; but in a little time the Grand-master relented,

and not only restored him to his former rank, but

loaded him with favours."

One of Germany's greatest poets has given the

literary world a magnificent poem based on this

tragic story. Some have thought that the story

of "St. George and the Dragon" was founded on

the above, but not so, for the English myth ante

dated the deed of Gozon, the Rhodes knight. The

historic fact is that an ancient Roman writer,

Diodorus Siculus, has penned how that, centuries

ere his day, Rhodes was overrun with gigantic

serpents, or dragons, and that a Thessalonian

warrior of fame destroyed them. This, of course,

does not prove that Gozon the knight of Rhodes

did not kill a dragon there. Doubtless something

of this nature occurred, but the story may have

been greatly elaborated. All such stories lose

nothing in the on-sweep of centuries. It appears

that this brave knight, Gozon, succeeded Ville

190 A HISTORY OF

neuve to the Grand-master's exalted office, and

also, by many battles against corsairs on sea

and Turks on land, gained great honors. He died

in 1353, his name and person alike revered by all.

On his upreared monument was inscribed the

words, "Here lies the Vanquisher of the Dragon."

Some time after this, the Pope intruded his

authority in the realm of the Order to such a

degree as caused serious fear for its continued

existence. He demanded absolute and unhesi

tating obedience to his political plans. This au

tocracy conflicted with what the Grand-masters

considered the duty they owed to the Order.

However, as it appeared to be a clerical policy to

choose an aged man for Pope, there was always

the thought that a speedy change as to the Chair's

incumbent would quiet matters. Frequently it

was even so. Space in this Rhodian chapter will

not permit any extended review as to battles

fought, political controversies, property-grasping

intrigues, carried on by kings and prelates. The

author must hasten to set forth eventuations

which ultimately compelled the illustrious Order

to quit Rhodes as, centuries earlier, it quit Pales

tine. Toward the close of the fourteenth century

the Othmanic Empire of the Turks had become

vast and powerful. As to this fact, we read,

"Turkey had swollen to a mighty empire, whose

frontiers were the Euphrates and the Danube—

the Steppes of Tartary and the Mediterranean

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 191

Sea." Bajazet the Sultan had proved himself

such a warrior prince that he was nick-named,

"Ilderim," that is, Lightning. It is authentically

written of this Sultan that "it was his boast that,

when he had ravaged Hungary, he would pass

into Italy, plant his standard on the Capitol, and

feed his war-horse with oats on St. Peter's altar."

But Bajazet's boast came to naught; not, indeed,

so much because he could not ultimately have

thus triumphed in spite of Latin warriors, but

because, in 1402, his great anny came to deathly

grips on the plains of Angora with the Mogul

Tartar army under the superb leadership of the

fearless Tamerlane. Here was fought to a finish

of Bajazet one of the most terrific battles recorded

in history. It ended in Bajazet being made a

prisoner to die in chains. Tamerlane's host swept

conqueringly through Asia Minor, and then be-

seiged Smyrna which was possessed by the

Knights of Rhodes. On the first day of operations,

Tamerlane displayed a white banner, thus signi

fying his readiness "to show clemency, in case of

an immediate surrender. The second day, the

standard was of the color of blood, signifying that

the lives of the Governor and his principal officers

were forfeited. But the third day, a black banner

floated over the Tartar's tent; and the Christians

knew that not even their voluntary submission

could save them from a violent death." The

writer of choice will forego any attempt to set in

192 A HISTORY OF

words the appalling scenes of slaughter which en

sued ere the Tartars took the city. When an en

trance was made, the in habitants were all butch

ered. We are told that "a few knights, and a

considerable number of soldiers, however, escaped

by swimming to the small craft in the harbour."

Again, it appeared, as in the closing years of St.

John d'Acre, as if the bell of doom was sounding

the extinction of the Order of Rhodes. Yet in no

past epoch of the Order's amazing history of

manifold triumph and defeat had there been a

time when it could marshal as many war-tested

veterans as at this date. At headquarters in

Rhodes there were housed permanently one thou

sand knights. However, it was far more a militant

machine than in any charitable and primal sense

a hospitallic Order. True enough, as a fighting

unit it ministered to wounded men and cared for

widows and orphans, for of these there was no

diminishment, yet striking for new conquests, and

repelling inveterate enemies, was, manifestly, its

meat and drink, its chief occupation. It appears

to be an universal, an immutable law, that they

who live by the sword shall perish by the sword.

Still, frequently enough, the clash of swords in

conflict is the necessary arbitrament of injustice

perpetrated.

Time and again had the fortressed city of

Rhodes been vainly struck by the naval power of

the Ottoman Turks, yet the enemy withdrew, if

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 193

not defeated, yet of the mind that present effort

was in vain. However, all the fortressed islands

surrounding Rhodes were snatched from the

knights' holding. In 1448 the last of the Emper

ors of Constantinople received the imperial

diadem. Like that of the city's illustrious founder,

his name was Constantine. Alas! his five years

of sovereignty were pressed full of mind misery,

for the powerful Mahomet II, the Ottoman Sultan,

was intent, week by week, upon "squeezing the

orange" of Constantine's holding. This Sultan,

it appears, was a highly educated personage, yet

very loose and licentious in his ways. Besides his

native tongue, it is affirmed that he spoke or

understood five languages, the Arabic, the Per

sian, the Chaldean, the Latin, and the Greek. He

was no easy antagonist in a ruling seat of power.

One ruling thought possessed his mind, viz., to

possess Constantinople. The story is recorded

of him that "at the dead of night, about the second

watch, he started from his bed, and commanded

the instant attendance of his prime vizir. The

message, the hour, the prince, and his own situa

tion, alarmed the guilty conscience of Calil Basha.

On receiving the royal mandate, he embraced,

perhaps for the last time, his wife and children;

filled a cup with pieces of gold, hastened to the

palace, adored the sultan, and offered, according

to the Oriental custom, the slight tribute of his

duty and gratitude. 'It is not my wish,' said Ma

194 A HISTORY OF

hornet, 'to resume my gifts, but to heap and multi

ply them on thy head. In my turn I ask a present

far more valuable and important; Constantinople.'

As soon as the vizir had recovered from his sur

prise, 'The same God,' said he, 'who has already

given thee so large a portion of the Roman empire,

will not deny the remnant, and the capital. His

providence, and thy power, assure thy success;

and myself, with the rest of thy faithful slaves,

will sacrifice our lives and fortunes.' "

In his preparations for the besiegement of the

imperial city, he engaged the services of an iron

monger, a Hungarian, to mould a great cannon,

capable of discharging an enormous projectile.

It was, we are told, "a piece of brass ordinance

of stupendous, and almost incredible, magnitude;

a measure of twelve palms is assigned to the bore;

and the stone bullet weighed above six hundred

pounds." Constantine was not ignorant of Ma

homet's preparations, and hastened to implore

the Latins to come to his assistance, but little if

any sincere action was taken to save the city.

Religion played a neutralizing part in this con

temptible indifference. It has ever been thus.

In 1453 the besiegement was on, and the fair

capital of the eastern Caesars was doomed. Space

will not permit of extended remarks as to the in

numerable tragic incidents which were enacted.

The following brief summary must suffice. Ma

homet promised a valuable gift to him who should

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 195

first scale the city's defensive walls, hence we are

told that "the first who deserved the sultan's re

ward was Hassan the Janizary, of gigantic stature

and strength. With his scimitar in one hand and

his buckler in the other, he ascended the outward

fortification: of the thirty Janizzaries, who were

emulous of his valour, eighteen perished in the

bold adventure. Hassan and his twelve compan

ions had reached the summit: the giant was pre

cipitated from the rampart; he rose on one knee,

and was again oppressed by a shower of darts and

stones. But his success had proved that the

achievement was possible; the walls and towers

were instantly covered with a swarm of Turks;

and the Greeks, now driven from the vantage

ground, were overwhelmed by increasing multi

tudes. As to the imperial Constantine, he was

hewn down in the terrible fray, buried deeply

beneath soldiers' corpses. As has been penned,—

As to the Sovereign, let them search the field;

And where they find a mountain of the slain,

Send one to climb, and being down beneath,

There they will find him at his manly length,

With his face up to heaven, in that red monument

Which his good sword had digged.

When Constantinople fell, to become the Capital

of the Turkish Empire, no less than sixty thou

sand people were made captives, and the greater

number of them sold to become slaves, or to suffer

a more distressing doom. It is recorded that

when the Sultan in person entered the carved por

196 A HISTORY OF

tals of St. Sophia, the most renowned cathedral in

Europe, he stood and beheld its ravished degrada

tion, then flashed into his mind the plaintive lines

of a Persian poet which he thoughtfully voiced:

The spider has wove bis web in the imperial palace;

And the owl bath sung her watch-song on the towers of

Afrasiab.

"Thus," writes a German, Von Hammer, "on

the 29th of May, 1453, the city of the seven names,

seven hills, and seven towers, was taken from the

seventh of the Palaeologi (the family name of the

Emperor), by the seventh Sultan of the Ottoman

line." Here, then, is stated a strange numeral

fact which will interest the student of the philos

ophy of Pythagoras.

Now we must revert our attention to Rhodes

and its peerless defenders. With the Order at this

crushing period it was not the thought of new

conquests on land and sea, but rather the surest

way to hold Rhodes as a home and sovereign

possession. No labors of masonry were counted

too great in order to assure of invulnerability.

In truth, careful sketches of the city were drawn,

and sent to the most famous engineers in Europe

so that new and stouter masonry might be added

to the bulwarks. Net only this, but we learn that

an intelligent breed of dogs were carefully trained

so as to perform scout duty. It certainly is griev

ous to chronicle that about this sententious period

a sorry dissention occurred in the Order as to what

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 197

country of the seven languages should have su

perior and preferential recognition as to the lead

ing offices. The French stoutly set forth their

priority claim, declaring that of the seven lang

uages three were really of French peoples, and,

besides, the first founders or Masters were French

men. The heated controversy ended by the

Grand-master, Zacosto, a Castilian knight, adding

the kingdom of Castile to the languages. This

occurred in 1461. The offices of dignity were di

vided among the languages as equitably as possi

ble. As to this, we read, "The Grand-commander,

who was president of the public treasury, and

director of the magazines, arsenal and artillery,

was taken from the language of Provence; the

Marshal, who took precedence at sea, from that of

Auvergne; the Grand Hospitaller, from that of

France; the Admiral, from that of Italy; the Grand

Conservator, from that of Aragon; the Turco-

polier, or general of the horse and marine guards,

from that of England; the Grand Bailiff, from that

of Germany; and the Chancellor from that of

Castile." In every age of mankind, honors sought

after, and imposed, have been much valued by all

classes and degrees of men. A consistent mea

sure of self-consciousness as to personal import

ance is essential to possess, but the genuine

meaure should be mentally understood. This is,

however, not always the case. Many there are,

devoid of intelligent wit, culture, discreet wisdom,

198 A HISTORY OF

and training, who horn and hoof for preferment

and important position, yet in every degree of

measurement are utterly unfitted to fill any posi

tion in the midst of their fellows, other than to

he "hewers of wood and drawers of water." This

class can man the bastion and the tower, but not

apart from a prudent overseer. The scrub-oaks

in a forest of towering, fronded pine-trees can

never become in Nature's economy other species

than what they are. But they can worthily grow

as scrub-oaks.

Ever has it been true that in the direfulness and

increasing troubles which beset a nation or com

munity—providing always that past conduct has

not filled the fateful cup of just good judgment—

there appears the man who, of all men, wisely and

efficiently leads and directs affairs. It was thus

in the closing history of the Order of St. John in

Rhodes. In 1476 there became Grand-master "one

to whom we are constrained to accord the honor

of being the most brilliant and the most trusted

of the long line of Grand-masters—Peter D'Au-

busson. In his incumbency was hurled from

Rhodes a Turkish fleet of one hundred and sixty

ships, after a terrific bombardment of ninety days

duration. Though the Tower of St. Anthony was

crumbled to pieces by prodigious guns with bores

of 36 inches, yet the onslaught was stayed by

D'Aubusson's masterly leadership and intrepidity.

The Turks retired, leaving nine thousand corpses.

DE L'ISLE ADAM, LAST GRAND-MASTER OF RHODES

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 199

Four years later, Sultan Mahomet died, and ere

dying he ordered the following inscription to be

placed on his tomb, "My intention was to have cap

tured Rhodes and to have subjugated Italy." But the

writer must hasten his pen to inscribe Rhodes'

dismal downfall, not indeed dismal as to heroic

effort, but as to the Order's irreparable loss. In

1521, just sixty-eight years from the taking of

Constantinople, Philip Villiers de L'Isle Adam

became Grand-master. He was in France when

the news of his election reached him. At once he

embarked for Rhodes. Two days he had sailed

when a careless seaman caused a conflagration.

With herculean efforts the fire was extinguished.

To the superstitious seamen the fire boded great

trouble brewing. Scarcely was this mishap

passed, when a tempest swept upon the ship, while

a thunder-bolt struck the ship's stern, killing nine

men. The same lightning shivered the Grand

master's sword blade to pieces while in its

scabbard. All spoke of this as a sure omen of

disaster and death. The Grand-master reached

Rhodes, and soon learned that the Sultan Soly-

man was completing preparations to strike

Rhodes with his combined naval and land forces.

Never had their ensued such preparation, not even

at Constantinople's besiegement. On the morning

of the 26th of June, 1522, a signal from Mount

St. Stephen intimated to the Rhodesians that the

Turkish fleet was in sight. Four hundred sail

200 A HISTORY OF

swept past the mouth of the haven with the pomp

and circumstance of a triumphant pageant; and

on board this mighty fleet were one hundred and

forty thousand soldiers, exclusive of sixty thou

sand serfs, torn from the forests of the Danube,

to serve as pioneers. It appears that there was

a treacherous Jew in Rhodes who wig-wagged

Solyman, in some subtle way, just where to train

his guns. Doubtless this infamous spy was caught

red-handed, and dealt with according to his deserts.

Never before in the annals of men did defenders

fight with greater intrepidity and heroic persist

ency. The supreme limit of mental ingenuity,

both by the defenders and aggressors, was

reached in contriving for and against. Weeks

followed weeks of incessant conflict. Bastions

were smashed, huge ditches were filled with

bodies, blood bespattered everything. And still

the conflict raged furiously. The Sultan had

vowed he would never leave Rhodes as had his

predecessors, only as its possessor. For thirty-

four successive nights the Grand-master lay on

a pallet by the intrenchments, ready to fling him

self into the strife. But why prolong the tragedy

and its unspeakable horror, when the brave de

fenders were daily dying by hundreds, and,

besides, a famine for food was weakening all the

living? At last the Grand-master deemed it his

Christian duty, far more painful than his personal

death, to despatch deputies to the Sultan to secure

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 201

just terms of surrender. Solyman received them,

surrounded with Janizaries clothed in polished

armour. The Sultan was ready to grant the most

magnanimous terms, viz., the churches should

not be profaned, no children should be taken from

their parents,—every person, whether knight or

citizen, should be at liberty to quit the island—

that the knights should depart in their own gal

leys, and that they should be allowed twelve days

from the ratification of the treaty, to embark their

property—that their property should include relics,

consecrated vessels, records and writings, and all

the artillery aboard their galleys. Truly these

were generous terms agreed upon! The Grand

master was invited by the Sultan to appear in his

presence, but at first hesitated, deeming it to his

humiliation. However, he finally assented, and

was received as a personage of highest regard by

the Sultan. He requested his interpreter to con

sole the Christian chief with the assurance that

"even the bravest of men were liable to become

the sport of fortune." Solyman, we are told, dis

missed the venerable knight with honour; and his

attendants earned back with them each a magnifi

cent garment. Thus closed the lengthy career of

the Order of St. John on the fair island of Rhodes,

for on the morning of the 1st of January, 1523,

the fleet, consisting of about fifty sail of all de

scriptions, put to sea. We will follow the knights

in the ensuing chapter.

CHAPTER IX

THE KNIGHTS OF THE ORDER OF ST. JOHN AS THE

KNIGHTS OF MALTA

A true knight,

Nor yet mature, yet matchless; firm of word,

Speaking in deeds, and deedless in his tongue,

Not soon provoked; nor, being provoked, soon calmed;

His heart and hand both open, and both free.

—SHAKESPEARE

TRULY, a mind torture was the wrenching

away from such a charming home as the

island of Rhodes. Two centuries in their passing

had made the island an earthly paradise, "a thing

of beauty and a joy forever." But as in Nature

leaves have their time to fall, and flowers to

wither, so was it as to earthly conditions with the

Order of knights. The living remnant were sad

dened beyond words, yet with indomitable forti

tude they boarded their galleys and sailed from

Rhodes out upon the waters of the Great Sea,

homeless indeed, yet not hopeless, for their Grand

master was in their midst, a fortress of strength

in such a depressing hour. In his soul he could

ever say, "I can do all that may become a man:

who dares do more is none." A fierce storm swept

upon them, as if the insensate elements were in

league with their home despoilers. However,

storm-torn and with dismantled galleys they

202

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 203

reached the island of Candice, a Venetian posses

sion. Here the warriors were welcomed and

invited to tarry through the winter, but the Grand

master's heart was not warm toward the authori

ties, for their inaction toward the Order in holding

their strong fleet in home ports while Rhodes was

being wrecked by the destroyer. He repaired his

galleys as speedily as possible, then gave orders

to the admiral of the larger ships, Austin, an

English knight, to direct his course toward Sicily,

while he remained with the sick and wounded

aboard the smaller ships on their way to Gallipoli,

on the Gulf of Tarento. The following spring the

Grand-master sailed for Messina, going into port

with the Order's banner furled, and in its stead a

banner bearing the figure of the Virgin clasping

her dead son in her arms, with the motto, "Afflictes

spes mea rebus." The Emperor, Charles the Fifth,

invited the Grand-master to make Messina the

Order's home. Charles was conscious how he had

neglected to give the military help which duty

demanded, and he realized that all people were

convinced that he and the French King, Francis

the First, were justly to blame for the Order's

calamity. The Nun-Hospitallers who domiciled

in Europe were greatly afflicted when they heard

of the loss of Rhodes. We are told that "to mark

their deep sense of the calamity that had befallen

the Order, the Hospitaller-nuns, who had hitherto

worn a red robe with a black mantle & bee, on

204 A HISTORY OF

which was a white cross, assumed a habit entirely

black, in token of mourning, which they continue

to wear to this day."

A deadly plague broke out in Messina shortly

after the fleet's arrival, and to save his knights

the Grand-master gave orders to sail away, almost

distracted with multiplied troubles. The fleet put

in the Gulf of Baiae, and its human freightage

encamped on the shore. In a month's passing,

the plague passed away, and they sailed for Civita

Vecchia, by the Pope's permission. The Pope

asked for an interview with L'Isle Adam, and

when the Grand-master appeared, the Pope arose

and embraced him, designating him, "Hero and

Defender of the Christian Faith." This indeed

was very complimentary, yet as an old writer in

referring to this incident, says, "Words which

cost his Holiness less expense than would have

done the succor necessary for the preservation

of Rhodes."

The Knights were now given as an asylum the

port of Viterbo, about forty miles from Rome.

The Pope, it appears, was still desirous of using

the Order against the infidels, hence he conversed

with the Grand-master as to their securing some

island home from which the knights could con

tinue fighting the battles of the Church. In this

consultation the islands of Malta and Goza were

specified as the most desirable. A knightly com

mission was despatched to Charles the Fifth, the

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 205

Emperor of Spain and Germany, to request him

urgently to give these islands to the Order as its

sovereign possession. The Emperor duly listened,

yet in reply gave no ready assent to the request.

The truth was he desired to retain, in some politic

way, authority so that he might at any time use

the Order to his own advantage. Time passed,

and in the meantime the Grand-master had audi

ence with the Emperor and the King of France.

As the English Language was no unimportant

part and factor of the Order, when Henry the

Eighth of England heard that the Grand-master

was hand-in-glove with these sovereigns and had

not visited his court, he forthwith voiced a demand

that all English knights should give military ser

vice to his realm. This startled the Grand-master,

and he speedily went to England for an audience

with the King. He was received by Henry with

distinction and honor. Listening to L'Isle Adam

recount the Order's tragic experience, the King

was deeply affected, and of willing accord rescind

ed the onerous measure. In leaving the King's

presence, the Grand-commander was presented

with "a golden basin and ewer, enriched with

precious stones."

Shortly after this, the Pope and the Emperor

entered into a fateful quarrel, and the powerful

Emperor was excommunicated. This brought on

3 fierce conflict, and the soldiery of the Emperor

entered Rome, compelling the Pope and his Cardi

206 A HISTORY OF

nals to immure themselves in the fortress of St.

Angelo. As to what occurred in the city, let a

brief historic word suffice. "The streets were

strewed with dead; the noblest and fairest were

degraded and outraged; and the Roman blood,

already contaminated with the Huns, the Vandals,

and the Goths, suffered yet another pollution,

from the intermingling of the Spanish and Ger

man nations." After two years of unholy strife,

a reconciliation ensued between the saucy Pope

and the provoked Emperor, and to show his

generous feelings toward the Order of St. John,

the Emperor ceded the islands of Malta, Goza, and

Tripoli, to the same. As to this important enact

ment it is recorded as follows, "The act of dona

tion received the imperial signature at Syracuse,

on the 24th of March, 1530. By this deed, Charles

ceded forever to the Grand-master and religious

fraternity of St. John, in absolute title and fee-

simple, all the castles, fortresses and isles of

Tripoli, Malta and Goza, with the power of life

and death, and that without appeal to any lord

paramount whomsoever."

Thus, again, did the illustrious Order possess

a home. This fact to all the knights was pro

foundly satisfying. Their new sovereign possess

ion, like unto Rhodes, was wave-washed, and to

men who dwelt long by the sounding sea this was

extremely gratifying. Yet how different appeared

the Maltese group of isles to that of the Archi

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 207

pelago! Still, this diverseness, by the action of

the law of mind, could become an interesting

factor, even a benefit. Now it will be to the read

er's enlightenment for the writer to subjoin a brief

historical, as also geographical lined survey of

these islands. "Malta—the Melita of Scripture—

lies in the bosom of the Mediterranean Sea, about

fifty miles southward of Sicily, the nearest point

of Europe. Its first inhabitants were of Cartha

ginian (Phoenician) origin (1000 B.C.), and to

this day the Maltese language, which is a corrupt

dialect of the Arabic, blended with Italian, is sup

posed to bear an affinity to the Punic (Phoenician)

tongue. From the Carthaginians it passed to the

Romans, who in turn gave place to the Goths,

and these again to the Saracens (Arabians). In

1090 it was recovered from the Infidels by the

Norman adventurers who had settled in Calabria.

It afterwards became an appanage of the German

Emperors, from whom it was taken by Charles of

Anjou, King of Sicily, who in turn was dis

possessed of it by the troops of Spain ; and, after

being repeatedly bought and sold for the con

venience of its rulers, was finally granted to the

Knights of St. John by the imperial act of dona

tion." This brief historic survey spans no less

than 2500 years in time's flight. The term, Malta,

is of Phoenician extraction. It comes from the

word, Malet, meaning a shelter, that is, a haven.

The Grand-master sent commissioners to the

208 A HISTORY OF

islands, first of all, to secure ready-to-hand know

ledge. Upon returning, the information was

voiced that Malta was nothing better than "a

shelterless rock of soft sand-stone called tuffa,

six or seven leagues long, and three or four broad.

The surface of the rock was scantily covered with

earth, but of so coarse and arid a kind that grain

refused to vegetate in it. It produced, however,

abundance of figs, melons, and other fruits, be

sides cotton and cummin, which, together with

honey, were exchanged by the native traders for

corn with their Sicilian neighbours. The island

had no rivulets, and, except in the interior, it was

destitute of springs—consequently, the inhabit

ants had to store up the rain in cisterns. Fuel

was so scarce that wood was sold by the pound;

and the natives usually dressed their food on fires

made with thistles and cow-dung dried in the sun.

Goza was described in the same report, as divided

from Malta by a channel about a league and a

half wide, in the midst of which lay two islets,

called Cumin and Cuminot. Goza was eight

leagues in circumference, destitute of harbors, and

environed by shoals and reefs, but withal blessed

with a fertile soil." Certainly the commissioners'

report was not of a nature to inspire the minds

and jubilate the spirits of the knights. However,

those unverdant isles were the possession of the

Order. Of course, after the despotic manner of

imperial potentates, the assent or dissent of a

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 209

country's native residents, in the matter of trade

or gift, had no consideration whatever. Power to

possess, or, on the other hand, to dispossess, was

what counted, not only with infidel monarchs, but

with Christian. There was no moral—even

though there were religious—distinction between

them. The unbiased student is constrained to

conclude thus. In passing, the writer will say that

the name Goza, by which the smallest isle is desig

nated, is derived from the old Roman word,

gaudex, that is, a tail. As the voyager approaches

the islands, the smallest isle appears like an

appendix to Malta.

On October 20th, 1530, the Grand-master and

his knights arrived and took possession of their

new home. Just seven years had wearily passed

since the day their galleys sailed away from

Rhodes. Henceforward the Order was popularly

known as the "Knights of Malta," and, the writer

may add, will continue to exist among nations by

this glory-crowned name.

Centuries before the landing of the knights in

Malta, the Saracens, being then in possession, had

upreared a fortress at the mouth of the great

harbor. This the knights amazingly strengthened,

and gave It the name St. Angelo. Opposite this

gigantic granite fortress at the extreme point of

a lofty and bare ridge, called Mt. Sceberras, they

upreared another, almost its equal in strength,

to which they gave the name St. Elmo. It was not

210 A HISTORY OF

long after the knights took possession of Malta

before a project was entered into to take the city

of Modon in the Morea and make it their head

quarters. It appears that the Knight Prior of

Rome took the leadership of this marauding expe

dition. Traitorous citizens of Modon were en

gaged, and the naval descent was made. After a

sanguinary conflict was waged, the aggressors

gained report that a large force was hurriedly

marching to Modon's defence, and after every

deed of spoiliation was perpetrated, they retreated.

In this most dastardly enterprise, several hundred

women were torn from their homes by the in

famous Italian soldiery. Sorry to relate, some

of the knights "did not scruple to share" in the

spoiliation. This tragic and despicable incident

much grieved L'Isle Adam, although he bore

bravely up in the midst of overseeing labors. The

most serious blow followed this unholy affair.

One of the Prior of Rome's attendant knights

quarreled with a youthful French knight and slew

him. The French knights speedily moved for

avengement. Soon the Italian knights and the

French were clashing swords in a deadly duel.

The Grand-master commanded the Prior of Rome

to punish the guilty, but he, being a kinsman of

the Pope, greatly more incensed the French

knights by this show of favoritism. As they had

cause to believe, he but added insult to injury.

This, as nothing else could, wore down the spirit

THE NEW YOU

T,^TOR- LENOX AND

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 211

of the Grand-master. Doubtless he well knew

from what invidious root the trouble sprang, yet

the root could not be easily uprooted without the

Order experiencing more serious trouble. Many

sovereigns of Europe were cognizant of this. But

alas! L'Isle Adam's heart-pressing woes did not

end with the tragic duel between the Italian and

French knights in Malta. The King of England,

Henry VIII, when but a youth was married to his

brother's widow, Catharine, the daughter of the

Spanish Emperor. Having become infatuated

with Anne Boleyn, a lady in waiting to his spouse,

Catharine, and knowing that his marital union

was contrary to moral law, although it had been

Pope-sanctioned on the grounds of international

comity, a political affair, Henry had urged the

Pope to decree his divorcement so that the unholy

union might end. The Pope hesitated to grant the

English monarch's appeal, for Charles had already

given him humiliating proof of his anger. After

three or four years of see-sawing procedure,

Henry grew wrathy, and submitted the matter to

an English court, the highest in the realm. The

matter received a verdict as to its being null and

void, hence a divorcement was granted. Hearing

the issue, both the Emperor and the Pope were

fiercely incensed, and Henry came under the

Church's condemnation forthwith. As the Eng-

Hsh establishments of the Order of St. John were

like all monastic institutions—distinctly Roman

212 A HISTORY OF

Catholic in faith and fealty, they with all others

experienced the confiscatory and dissoluting ire

of stern and inflexible Henry, the real monarch

of England. As this constitutes a very important

factor as to the Sixth Language of the Order, the

Language of and from which the American

knighthood professedly springs, in this connection

it is proper to submit a brief authentic statement

as to Henry's dissoluting edict and action. The

English historian, Camden, in his writing as to the

King's action, says, "In England and Wales six

hundred and forty monasteries, ninety colleges,

two thousand and seventy-four chantries and free

chapels, and one hundred and ten hospitals, were

dissolved." Of course these summed up the total

of all the various Latinized institutions in the Eng

lish realm, with their tens of thousands of men

and women who preferred to live apart from the

hard-working citizens. They, professedly, had

more religion than others, but they were not more

godly. We further learn that "a bill was brought

into the English parliament on the 22nd day of

April, 1540, which was read a second time on the

24th, and a third time on the 26th of the same

month, ordering the total suppression of the order

of the Knights Hospitallers in England and Ire

land; and those belonging to the various estab

lishments were enjoined no longer to use the

habit of their former titles. This bill vested in

the king all the possessions of the Hospitallers,

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 213

viz., their castles, honours, manors, churches,

houses, mesnes, lands, tenements, rents, rever

sions, services, woods, underwoods, pastures,

meadows, and so forth, and absolves the knights

from obedience to the Pope."*

The reader will observe that the Sixth Lang

uage which was established in Scotland, being

under Scotch sovereignty, did not come under

this dissolving bill. As this fact will be considered

and treated in the succeeding chapter, the writer

will refrain here from dwelling upon it. At the

time of the order's suppression in England—for

which the dilly-dallying Pope was as much to

blame as "Bluff King Hal,"—Sir William Weston

was Knight Prior of the Order in England, with

headquarters in the hospital of Clerkenwell, in

London, while Sir John Rauson was Knight Prior

of Ireland at Kilmainham. It was the poet Byron

who wrote,

Tis sometimes sweet to have our quarrels,

Particularly with a tiresome friend.

Certainly the Pope of Rome had tired the mind

and spirit of the English king by his wig-wagging

tactics,—had tired the brusque monarch, en

throned on his island, he who in his theologic dis-

* We are told that "the King of England and many

great nobles enjoyed a right, called 'corrody,' of dining

at the table of the Knights at Clerkenwell and elsewhere,

and of this privilege they frequently availed themselves,

as the Grand Prior greatly bewails in his report to Rhodes."

214 A HISTORY OF

putation against Martin Luther, the monk of

Wittenberg, was by the Holy Father designated

"The Defender of the Faith." However, ecclesi

astic honors and titles, like those of political im

posing, have been known to go topsy-turvy, and

"rip at the seams." In at least a monetary aspect,

there was much sweetness came to Henry by the

confiscatory procedure which his quarrel ulti-

mated in. Just how much the Pope could credit

himself in securing, the writer has no means of

knowing, for notoriously is it true that Church

men are ever scrupulously secretive as to earthly

enrichments. However, obviously enough, he

gained only loss in respect to England.

When the Grand-master heard of the Order's

dissolution in England and Ireland from the lips

of knights who exiled themselves rather than re

main in England and lose their knightly status

and station, his spirit was o'erwhelmed with grief,

and "a violent fever deprived him of the little

remains of vigour which were left him ; and on the

21st of August, 1534, he expired. In him the

Order lost the most illustrious Grand-master it

ever possessed. His reign of thirteen years was

marked by a continued succession of perils and

disasters; but his bravery, his wisdom, his forti

tude, his clemency, and his devotion to his Order,

threw a radiance even over reverse. The knights

laid him in the dust, with filial sorrow; and the

simple epitaph 'Hie Jacet Virtus Victrix Fortunae'

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 217

(Here Lies Virtue Triumphant Over Misfortune!)

was inscribed upon his tomb."

To dwell upon the multiplied and death-dealing

naval warrings, and, sometimes at least, dishon

orable expeditions in which the Knights of Malta

took part with European troops and naval men,

would be but a tragic recital of such conflicts as

have been briefly outlined in former chapters, and

also the rehearsal would swell the contents of this

chapter to an unwarrantable degree. "Enough

is as good as a feast," is as truly applicable to

literary provender as to bodily need supplied. In

Malta the knights of the Languages resided in

separate buildings; these finely constructed edi

fices, in their architectural lines, distinctly marked

the lineage of the various knights of the Order.

It would be decidedly unjust and wrong to hold

the thought that the erection of these Priory edi

fices bespoke unfraternity. As in Nature, "birds

of a feather flock together," in like manner do the

tribal and national-tongued peoples of earth

prefer like association. Just here the writer may *

properly say, language has played a far more

potent part in mankind's super-centuried drama

than anything else. The hope for international

peace and good-will, men toward men, depends

not so much upon toadying to deep-rooted preju

dices, be they religious or political, as upon a

clear-minded understanding of the mind's tongued

utterances. We moderns are most apt to think

218 A HISTORY OF

slightingly of the very ancient peoples of earth,

but proper study will evidence to our minds that

much which makes our language possible is

rooted in what we term "dead languages." But

such are not dead, nor did they ever die : they were

metamorphosed. As a scholar has penned, "All

the various forms of written letters now used in

Europe have come in different ways from the

letters first used by the Phoenicians (Philistines).

The name Alphabet shows it: it comes from the

first two Phoenician letters aleph and beth; In

Greek, alpha and beta." With this digression we

return to our knighthood survey. We are credibly

informed that the Order of Malta, for some un

stated reason, inculcated a law in its statutes that

no native Maltese could become a knight of the

Order. Not because there were no old and aristo

cratic families therein, for such there were, and In

every cultured way equal to Europeans, if indeed

not of older distinction, as also worth. It may be

that the leading knights held the thought that in

time the Maltese would attain numerical prepon

derance, and thus control the Order's destiny. If

this was the reason, it certainly was not of soul

nobility. But we may well ask, when and where

exists or has existed an organized body of men

which has or does carry on in absolute impar

tiality, and that functions only and fully along

the equitable line of mental and moral worth and

measurement? Confessedly, the writer of this

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 219

historic treatise knows not of the existence of

such an institution on earth.

The Knights of Malta became almost exclusive

ly a famed naval power, ploughing the sea with

their ships of war, incessantly coming into grips

with Algerian and Turkish corsair fleets. Naval

improvement was ever the prime matter of consul

tation, and this implied artillery as well as ships.

"One great ship of the Order was of enormous

size, and was made shot-proof by being sheathed

with iron plates." Here, then, the Order of Malta,

historically, had the priority as to steel-clad ships

of war. Who can safely deny that Ericson, of

Monitor fame, had not in mind the iron-sheathed

ship of the Knights of Malta when he caused to

have built his "cheese-box"?

Though the knights of England were scattered

through Europe, and housed at Malta, they still

entertained the hope that the Order, subject to

the Pope in religion, would be reconstructed in

England and Ireland. Doubtless it is true that

much secret intriguing prevailed while Henry VIII

continued in life. If so, the utmost care was

essential, for the King was uncompromising in

word and spirit. Neither an open or prowling

enemy of the king was safe in his realm. But

Henry at last succumbed to death, and his daugh

ter, Mary, by Catharine of Spain, was proclaimed

Queen of England. She was in the strictest sense

a devoted Roman Catholic. To her one-viewed

220 A HISTORY OF

mind, the Reformed teachings were infamous, and

merited royal condemnation, and its teachers the

fires of destruction, in time and eternity. Upon

Mary's enthronement, one of her first official acts

was to despatch an envoy to the Grand-master

in Malta with the statement that "she intended

to restore to the Order all the convents and estates

which had been taken from it when all the English

monasteries were suppressed by her father, Henry

VIII." This the Queen did; but while she gave

back the possessions which had become crown

lands and houses, she could not persuade the

nobility and others of her subjects to unloosen

their purchased rights to them. It does thus

appear that Mary's religious feelings were far

more fervid—such as they were—than those of

the Catholic nobility.

However, the Priory of Clerkenwell was re

established, in the name of Pope and Queen, for

three or four terrible flesh-burning years of her

none too brief reign. But Mary died, and her half-

sister, Elizabeth, was crowned Queen. She saw

fit to accept her royal father's law of suppression

as valid, and moreover, a very necessary realm-

sweeping piece of legislation. Had the English

Prior of the Order studied the New Testament

writings, instead of being mind-blinded by Church

superstitions, the Order in the realm of Elizabeth

would have been recognized, not as the Pope's

weapon, but a safe and altogether worthy institu

STRADA SAN GIOVANNI, VALLETTA

TH" ?:*'•'' y:.:k

ASTO?. LFNOX AND

Til ""O i' /»r!ONS

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 223

tion. Hand-in-glove with and for the Pope, it was

sword-in-hand against Queen Elizabeth. Matters

shifted quite differently in the Scottish Priory, as

the reader will learn in the ensuing chapter.

The act of Henry VIII has been loudly and

strongly condemned by the Latin Church officials

in the passing centuries, but condemnation comes

with poor grace from those who have persistently

striven, by blood and fire, to extirpate and destroy

from the earth every religious institution which

is contrary to their own. Not only so, but the

official letter from the Pope to King Edward II

of England, against the Order of Templars in

1312, which Order had carried properly on in

Edward's realm, proves how double-keyed, ruling

clerics can choose to be. In the letter the Pope

"commanded the King of England to seize and

imprison all members of the Order on one day (as

the King of France had done) , and to hold in the

Pope's name all the property of the Order till it

should be determined how it was to be disposed

of." The Pope, you see, deemed that any orders

he might give were holy orders, but those which

a monarch in his realm felt moved to give were

unholy. But as to satisfaction, the horse that

gets the oats to eat is generally the contented nag.

The one law controls men and horses alike. Quite

willingly does the writer pass by the years of the

Order's residence in Malta and Gozo—it having

lost Tripoli to the Algerians—to the year of the

224 A HISTORY OF

installation of the illustrious John de la Valette,

in 1557, some twenty-seven years later. It

appears that the persistent naval enterprises of

the Order in Malta had shot beyond the patience

of Solyman, the Turkish sovereign, and thus he

determined to destroy its island stronghold. A

mighty fleet, with every furnishment of destruc

tion, soon sailed the seas westward. Valette was

not ignorant of Solyman's preparation and pur

pose, hence he made every effort to withstand

the ominous storm. He gathered around him his

knights and voiced as follows, "A formidable

enemy are coming like a thunder-cloud upon us;

and if the banner of the Cross must quail to the

unbeliever, let us remember that it is a signal that

heaven demands us the lives which we have sol

emnly devoted to its service. He who dies in this

cause dies a happy death; and, to render us

worthy to meet it, let us renew at the altar those

vows which ought to make us not only fearless,

but invincible in the fight."

After this stirring address, he called a muster

roll of his forces, and learned there were seven

hundred knights with their serving-brothers, and

about eight thousand five hundred soldiers, com

posed of the crews of the galleys, and militia.

On the 18th of May, 1565, the mighty armada

of the Turks hove in view. Its one hundred and

fifty-nine ships carried thirty thousand fighting

men, the major portion of them being janizaries,

JEAN LA VALETTE, GRAND-MASTER AT MALTA

J

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 225

that is, the offspring of Christian mothers who

from childhood had been exclusively trained for

war in the Sultan's army. They ever were his

most dependable soldiery. Soon the Turkish

cannon belched forth their missiles at the mason

ry of the fortress St. Elmo. We are told that "a

battery of ten guns, each of which carried a ball

of eighty pounds, two sixty pound culverins, and

a basilisk of enormous dimensions, which threw

stone bullets that weighed one hundred and sixty

pounds, opened upon the fort." As there is a

tragic sameness to every battle of blood and carn

age, be it fought on land or sea, the writer of

ready will refrains from penning a detailed

account of this fiercely contested conflict, as some

old time writers have done. However, to show

the ingenuity of the military mind when con

fronted with a warring problem, the writer pens

the following. When many Janizaries succeeded

in landing, we are told that "under the Grand

master's direction a species of fire-work was pre

pared, which was afterward found of infinite

service in repelling the assaults. It consisted of

large hoops made of wood, which, after being

dipped in brandy, were rubbed over with boiling

oil, and then covered with cotton soaked in a

combustible preparation, two ingredients of which

were gun-powder and saltpetre. This operation

was repeated three times at different intervals, in

order to allow each layer of cotton to cool before

226 A HISTORY OF

it was covered by another. When the hour of

battle came, these hoops were set on fire, and

thrown, with the aid of tongs, into the midst of

the enemy. Hooped into clusters by girdles of

unquenchable flame, the Turkish soldiers often

lost all discipline; and, to prevent the flesh from

being burned off their bones, flung themselves

into the sea." How unspeakably horrible was all

this! Morally considered, better far be the in

ventor of a sewing machine, an automobile, or

even a calumet pipe of peace, than any such flesh-

incinerating contrivance. However, every fateful

contingency must be met and balanced by a con

trivance equal to the implement or factor which

endangers.

At last the strong fortress of St. Elmo fell into

the hands of the Turkish soldiery, yet not until

eight thousand Turks lay stark in death. The

Order had lost three hundred knights and thirteen

hundred soldiers. When the Turkish commander

mounted the fort's bulwarks and gazed about him,

it is recorded that he exclaimed, "What resistance

may we not look for from the parent (meaning,

Fortress St. Angelo) when it has cost us the

bravest of our army to humble the child!" The

sight of the heaps of Turkish corpses infuriated

the Pasha, and he ordered the bodies of dead

knights, headless and cross-gashed, to be tied to

planks and sent adrift into the inner harbour.

The taking of St. Elmo was but the beginning of

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 227

the conflict, for brave Valette purposed to perish

ere the Turks should possess Malta. None of

Europe's princes came to his aid, not so much as

the Pope's soldiery. The reader must doubtless

know that the Pope at this epoch was a sovereign

as well as the Papa of Christendom. At last when

Valette's mind became toned with dark despair,

a Sicilian fleet appeared on the horizon, and a

vociferous and jubilant cheer of hope rent the air.

What was to Valette's joy of heart, was to the

Pasha's disturbing fears. Week after week the

thunderous conflict raged, till at last, after three

months and a half of horror and destruction, the

Turkish fleet, leaving behind twenty-five thousand

corpses of their dead, weighed anchor and com

passed for its home ports. Now was there great

rejoicing throughout Europe. We are told that

"the Pope, boundless in his acknowledgements

of the services the Grand-master had rendered to

Christianity (that is, his Church), formally

proffered him a cardinal's hat; but Valette rejected

it as incompatible with his official duties. Philip

the Second of Spain sent him, in token of admira

tion, a magnificent sword and poniard, the hilts of

which were of gold, enriched with diamonds,"

We are informed that the youth of Malta today

are reminded of this victorious conflict by the

words of a poem printed in the local school-books.

The poem concludes as follows,—

228 A HISTORY OF

Ob, may the story of that deathless fight

Still make you, like your fathers, brave and strong!

May some great minstrel shape the tale aright,

And give it to the world in deathless song.

At the close of this memorable conflict, the

Grand-master turned his excellent talent to the

designing and building of a city amid the ruins

and rocks of Mount Sceberras. We read, "The

first great stone was laid on the point of Saint

John's bulwark, and the Grand-master spread the

mortar on it with his own hand. Under it were

deposited a great number of gold and silver

medals, on which was represented the new city,

with the legend, 'Melita Retiascens' ; and on the

exurgue, the day and year of the foundation, 28th

of March, 1566."

Some two years subsequent to this important

event, Valette, as is recorded, "was struck by a

coup-de-soleil," in other words, a sun-stroke, and

soon passed into the silent tomb. As it would not

be of material interest to the reader to attempt,

however briefly, to recite the doings of the Malta

knights throughout the many years from the

heroic days of Valette in 1565 to the unheroic

Grand-mastership of Ferdinand von Homspech in

1797, the writer will refrain from dwelling on the

Order's existence, and movements with European

powers, as those years fled by. There ensued,

however, one or two incidents which the reader

may be pleased to note. About the middle of the

seventeenth century, Lascaris, the Grand-master,

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 229

was influenced by an official Frenchman to pur

chase islands in the West India group, in the

Western hemisphere. He bought the islands of

Saint Christopher, Saint Bartholomew, Saint

Croix. "The fee-simple of all these possessions,

with all the plantations, slaves, and stores upon

them, was purchased for about five thousand

pounds sterling." Twelve years afterward the

Grand-master resold them to French merchants,

as they proved unprofitable to the Malta Order.

Today the product of one plantation in a season

brings more monied returns than the price the

Order paid for the four islands.

The upheaval of the French Revolution thun

dered forth the end of the landed domination of

the aristocrats, both secular and religious. Feudal

serfdom and propertyless peasantry gave place to

tillers of soil being owners of their land tillage.

Soft-handed parasites who disdained all that was

termed work, gave place to "Peter, Paul, and

John," honorable fishermen, tradesmen, and real

instructors, and respected laymen. Voracious

human sharks who for centuries had swam in

sleek fatness in the midst of peoples, were merci

lessly arrested and their treasures of plunder re

distributed. Flaring and burlesqued titles of dis

tinction were summarily legislated into innocuous

desuetude, or hades. Thus it was that the Knights

of Malta, together with their manors, estates, and

properties in France, came under the wrathful

230 A HISTORY OF

judgment of the "Republicans." The King, Louis

the Sixteenth, was reduced to beggary, and the

Grand-master advanced him five hundred thou

sand livres to procure his ransom. This political

act, however estimable in itself, brought the Order

into the arena of state affairs. The result was

quick condemnation and confiscation. "First a de

cree was passed subjecting the possession of the

Order to all the taxes imposed on other property—

next it was enacted, that every Frenchman who

was a member of any Order of knighthood that

required proofs of nobility, should cease to be

regarded as a citizen of France—and lastly, by an

edict dated the 19th of September, 1792, the Order

of Malta was declared to be extinct within the

French territories, while its possessions were

annexed to the national domains." We may

seriously query: Was it a mere coincidence that

the knights' Parisian edifice, known as the

"Temple," doubtless the same edifice owned by

the Templars in which Molai placed his Order's

coin when he left Cyprus for Paris, was used by

the citizen rulers in which to imprison the French

monarch, Louis XVI. This Temple, and its rich

store of money, was mercilessly torn from the

Templar Knights, and the noble Grand-master

burnt alive. Now a successor of Philip is placed

in durance in this building, there to despairingly

await guillotining. This, truly enough, is a

thought-provoking reversement of persons in the

MALTA—THE OLD CITY GATES

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 231

fateful drama. The ancients would see in all this

the stern and inexorable justice of Nemesis!

The Order was still existent in Malta; but not

for many days, for the world-ambitious Napolean

Bonaparte, the militant genius, had far reaching

schemes of conquest. Ferdinand von Hompesch

was the first and only German that became Grand

master. Under his leadership the Emperor of

Russia was appealingly asked to become officially

"Protector of the Order." He accepted the high-

sounding title, together with "a superb coat of

mail, and a jewelled cross, the possession of heroic

La Valette. While all this was going on, the first

division of Napoleon's Republican fleet was on its

way for Malta. On the 6th of June, 1798, it

reached the islands. Where was the new-made

imperial Protector? Napoleon doubtless smiled

at the performance of his induction into office.

Three days later Napoleon appeared with his

grand fleet, and demanded immediate entrance

into the inside harbor of Malta. It is needless to

say that Napoleon's demand was assented to. His

troops were quickly landed, and the Republican

Admiral, with his officers, followed. The move

ment was more of a parade than aught else. As

the famous Admiral with expert eye viewed the

granite fortresses he turned to one of his officers,

and said, "It is well, General, that there was some

one within to open these gates to us. We should

have had some trouble in entering if the place had

232 A HISTORY OF

been altogether empty." Napoleon's command

was that all knights should quit the island forth

with. "About ten pounds sterling was advanced

to each knight for the expenses of his journey,

but he was not permitted to depart until he had

torn the cross, the emblem of the Order, from his

breast, and mounted the tri-coloured cockade."

Not only was this suffered by the aristocrat

knights, but the Grand-master "was not even

allowed to carry with him the archives of the

Order. All the Republican rapacity consented to

spare, were a part of the true cross, which the

knights had brought with them from the Holy

Land; the hand of St. John, presented by the

Sultan Bajazet to the Grand-master D'Aubusson ;

and a miraculous image of the Holy Virgin of

Philerme." Of course, such a genius as Napoleon

failed utterly to appraise the religious value, or,

indeed, genuineness, of these relics. A mortal

must be peculiarly minded to appreciate such

things. To conclude the dramatic ending of Malta

knighthood, it will be of interest to the reader to

learn that "the standards and trophies of the

Order were all carried away by the spoilers; but

these relics never reached the country for which

they were destined. Part of them perished in the

Orient, the French flag-ship, which was blown up

in the memorable battle of Aboukir; and the rest

were captured by the English in the Sensible frig

ate, which shortly after fell into their hands."

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 233

After the French naval power was shattered by

that of the British under command of Admiral

Nelson, Malta was closely blockaded for two try

ing years ere the French General assented to

surrender. As it was suicidal to maintain his

stubbornness longer, on September the 4th, 1800,

he yielded Malta to General Pigot, and thus Malta

became a part of the British Empire. Today the

Maltese would not have it otherwise. Strictly

speaking, the Order of Malta became extinct, as

far as any residence in Malta was concerned. Yes,

in a more definite manner than in England in

the reign of Elizabeth, for although as an Order

it was dissolved in England, all its members were

not driven out of the realm, although unrecog

nized as such. However, the whole of the Sixth

Language was not extinct, for the Scottish Priory

still carried on, as the reader will be told in the

ensuing chapter, as also in what measure and

manner the Order has undergone transformation

and rejuvenation. Thus it is that much that will

be of especial interefel to the up-to-date reader

is set forth in the following chapter.

CHAPTER X

THE SIXTH LANGUE OP ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND

IRELAND: ITS DISSOLUTION AND RESUSCITATION;

AS ALSO A REVIEW OP THE ESTABLISHMENT OP

THE ORDER IN AMERICA

"Oh, hallowed memories of the past,

Ye legends old and fair!

Still be your light upon us cast,

Your music on the air."

TTAVING perused the previous chapters of his-

toric review, the reader has mentally wafted

down the stream of the Order of St. John to the

point in its coursing when, by the despotic action

of sovereign rulers, it swept, as an international

organization, into the murky gulf of inaction.

As an accredited sovereign Order it came to its

end in England in 1559, and its landed possessions

and edifices became state properties. Thus it was

that the Sixth Langue went into dissolution some

233 years prior to that of the French sovereignty

in the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, that is, in

1792.

Now as it is set forth on the printed page by

some present day writers that the Sixth Langue

of the ancient Order never ceased to "carry on,"

but preserved itself intact through the years of

becloudment to the present day, not in England,

but in Scotland, it becomes the important duty

234

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 235

of the author of this treatise to unveil, as com

pletely as he is able, the authenticity and validity

of this Scottish claim. If it be clearly valid, every

accoladed Sir Knight will have cause to be glad;

if otherwise,—well, he will be compelled to con

sider knightly honors from a different view point

than that of ancient chartered rights, of official

succession. All in all, the latter may equal in

living value the former. It is as to valuation a

matter of mind.

However, it will be of interest, and also enlight

enment, to scan carefully all historic ground re

lating to the matter of the Sixth Branch of the

octaved Order of St. John.

The definite year date of establishment in Eng

land is not set down, yet the following lines from

the pen of George Thomas Beatson, M. D., C. B.,

author of The Knights Hospitallers of Scotland, and

Their Priory at Torphichen,—which is a valued work

—will assist our minds. He writes, "I have men

tioned that it was about 1100 A.D. that the

English Langue or Province of the Order was

established in London, and that it soon became

very prosperous . . . Consequently, it is not

surprising that a settlement of the Order was

made in Scotland in 1124 A.D., at a time when

conditions for such a step were exceptionally

favourable." This establishment date in London

gives twenty-four years' priority to England. It

is consistent to believe that the English Langue

236 A HISTORY OF

took its name from the place or kingdom in which

it was first established. It appears that the Order

existed in England some eighty-five years before

the Grand Priory of Clerkenwell, London was

founded. This occurred in 1185 A.D. Now as to

the founding of the Scotish Priory at Tophichen,

there is no date set down. Sir Thomas H. GI1-

mour, in his book, Knights of Malta; Ancient and

Modern, writes,—"we have it on record that Archi

bald, Magister of Torphichen, held the office of

Grand Prior in 1252." This, the reader can see,

was sixty-seven years subsequent to the founding

of the English Priory. It is authentic history that

James Sandilands was the last Scottish Prior of

Torphichen Priory. He was installed Prior in 1547

and died in 1596. While England and Scotland

were two sovereignties, the two Priories were one

in spirit and code. As the Sixth Langue they

could not be otherwise, for the Order was one.

This is a point which some writers have ignored;

but it is important. King Henry VIII, as we have

stated in the preceding chapter, formally dissolved

the Order in England and Ireland in 1540 A.D.,

bringing to an end the Grand Priory of Clerken

well. This was a fatal blow to the Sixth Langue,

both in England, Ireland, and Scotland. Twenty-

seven years prior to this dissolution, the Scottish

army had been utterly defeated by the English

king's army on Flodden Field. Both the Scottish

King and his son were slain. Scotland in this

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 237

way came under the power of the English throne,

hence, as the reader can understand, the Priory

of Torphichen became subject to the will of the

English monarch. Not only this, but the Scottish"

Prior, James Sandilands, became a devout Pro

testant some five years from the date of his in

stallation. As the Order was a confessed Roman

Catholic institution it was quite impossible for

Sandilands to function as Prior when Mary Stuart

was hailed as Queen. She, of course, was a

Catholic. As to the action taken by Sandilands,

we read,—"he went at the request of the Grand

Priory to hand over to the Queen the lands and

possessions of the Order, together with the dignity

of the Lord St. John, which he held as chief of

the Order." This action, clearly enough, brought

an ending to the Scottish Priory. From this event

onward there did not exist in Scotland a legally

recognized Order of St. John. The reader may

inquire, what was the date of this action? The

date is not stated, but we may approximate the

time. Mary was proclaimed Queen in 1542, and

she died in 1567. Within these twenty-five years

the date falls. Sandilands lived twenty-nine years

after the Queen died. It is both unauthentic and

inconsistent to hold that the Order continued on

in Scotland subsequent to this action. If there

existed a scrap of documentary evidence as proof

that it did so, in a clandestine, that is, secret way,

as Mr. Gilmour in his book intimates it did, such

238 A HISTORY OF

a scrap has not been set forth by any historian.

Mere personal opinion does not make fact in any

case. We can generously respect a man's stated

belief, be it right or wrong, but we do him no

injury when we choose to decide his opinion

carries no weight of established fact. When Mr.

Gilmour writes, "The Order continued to exist

(in Scotland), and whether Lord Torphichen

(Sandilands) continued to hold the office of Grand

Prior or not, he positively did continue to be a

leader in the Protestant cause, where he led the

same men as he led in the grand Prior," he pens

no authentic statement, but his personal opinion.

How much more consistent and creditable are the

following lines from the pen of Sir Richard Brown,

Bart., who for twenty years was the Grand Secre

tary of the modern English Langue of St. John.

He writes, "After flourishing in the British Islands

from the year of our Lord 1104 to 1566, the vener

able Langue of England merged, owing to ex

tended violence, in the general body of the Order,

and it emerged from the same in 1831, by virtue

of the sovereign authority vested by a majority

of the constituent Langues in the Capitular Com

mission of Paris." In the body of this statement

we have historic fact inwritten. It is not personal

opinion in printed dress. This gentleman makes

use of the word "merge" in relation to the condi

tion of the English Branch of the Order from 1566

to 1831. What does the term mean? In the

I

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 239

Standard dictionary the term is denned as follows:

"To sink the identity or individuality of; cause to

disappear, be combined, or be swallowed up; to

be absorbed into something else." Now such was

the state and experience of the Sixth Langue of

the Order. However, it emerged anew in a

modernized dress in 1831, and is today carrying

on a hospital and ambulance work both in Eng

land and Scotland. This is provable and approved

fact.

But the above historic fact is wholly—however

unwarrantably and unjustly—brushed aside and

ignored by our Scottish confreres who prefer to

claim definitely an unbroken knighthood suc

cession from the Priory of Torphichen. No

authentic documents are shown to verify and sub

stantiate this claim, so far as the author of this

treatise can discover. It is set forth on printed

page that In a session of the "Grand Black Chap

ter of Ireland" in 1850, a Committee reported as

follows, "The Order never was dissolved and that

they held the chain of transmission which was

perfect in all its links." The author of Knights

of Malta, Mr. Gilmour, writes of this as being

"authoritative," but why and in what way he does

not state. We might reasonably ask: from what

knightly source emerged the Grand Black Chapter

of Ireland? Also, when and in what manner did

it come into credentialed powers? If in truth It

was perfectly linked with the Order of St. John of

240 A HISTORY OF

the old Priory of Torphichen, it certainly would

not be asking too much to show the chain's inter

linking. From History of the Ancient and Honorable

Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, 1891 edi

tion, we subjoin the following. "Long after the

Reformation, when the Hospital and Templar

lands in Scotland were ceded to the British Crown,

independent bodies sprang up under the name of

'Knights Templars of St. John of Jerusalem,'

attached to the Masonic Fraternity and who,

toward the end of the last century erected Grand

Masters or Grand Commanderies of their own . . .

It is impossible that they could be the representa

tives of the chivalric Order of Malta, which con

tinued there until the surrender of the Island in

1796, and had issued edicts of expulsion against

the members of the Scottish branch of St. John

as unfaithful to their vows." It may be a disap

pointment to the reader to have the author of this

treatise pen the fact that no information of valid

worth has been gleaned by him. Mere statements,

unsubstantiated by documentary evidence, do not

create fact. From all sources of information

which the writer has vised, much could be set for

ward which would, doubtless, make interesting

reading, but assuredly would not be inspirational,

and perhaps not mind cheering to the reader.

The writer pens not as a judge, but as an historic

reviewer and searcher of facts. In this sense,

and in none other, his confessed inability is tabu

i

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 241

lated. The writer is not unmindful of the psycho

logical fact, known to all students of that science,

that what may be accepted by one man as well-

founded fact, may, and frequently is, considered

by another as utterly unworthy of credence or

acceptance. This is why documentary evidence

is essential to verify a claim. Now no reason

able mind will doubt the existence of knights, both

of St. John Hospitallers and Templars, in Scotland

subsequent to the ending of both fraternities.

The reader may rest assured that such was the

case. Not only so, but that in some silent and

private way they preserved knighthood. This

was, however, as true of English knighthood as

of the Scottish and Irish. If there had not been

English knights of St. John living in 1831 A.D.

how could the English Langue "emerge" into a

renewal status, as officially stated? Had there

existed no knights, duly and truly accoladed, the

Paris sessional action would have been a creation,

not a revival of the old Order. However, Mr.

Gilmour in his historic treatise manifestly enough

disrelishes the thought as to the Order of St. John

being in a state of abeyance from Sandilands' day

to these modern times, for he writes, "That the

Order continued in a publicly recognized manner

is shown by the fact that about the year 1572

David Seaton with a portion of the Scottish

Knights separated themselves from the then Pro

testant fraternity. He retired to Germany where

242 A HISTORY OF

be died in 1591, the remnant of the Seceders

ultimately finding a shelter under the wing of the

first lodge of Scottish Masons at Kilwinning, Ayer-

shire, where they introduced the Orders of St.

John, which are still given in connection with

(Blue) Masonry." Now to the mind of the writer

the contents of all this clearly discloses a complete

disintegration, a final breaking to pieces of all

that constituted the Scottish Branch of the Order.

No authentic facts are appended to show that any

publicly official portion of the Order remained and

carried on. In such a fight the writer sums it up.

The Order in Scotland, as in England, ceased to

exist as such, legally and socially.

From what detritus came into substantial and

organic construction the modern Fraternity of

Knights of Malta, vigorously carrying on in this

nation, the writer of this review possesses no clear

Informing word to submit. Doubtless there

existed in Scotland, as in other countries, both

knightly matter and accoladed men throughout

the period of what has been termed "abeyance,"

that is, a state of suspension, of inaction. As to

who the men were, and from whence they secured

the furnishments by which a reconstruction has

ensued, has not been clearly set forth, so far at

least as the writer has learned. However, the

work has eventuated, and the modernized Order

is helpfully functioning. Sir Knights of American

citizenship can serviceably go forward accomp

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 243

listalng knightly duties, and by so doing make to

their Order of Malta a name as worthy as that

of the Order "in days of old when knights were

bold, and barons held their sway." In these thrill

ing years of quickly outwrought, and essentially

new departures in every realm of human activity,

as the writer views it, it would not comport with

the times to hug closely to what in the parlance

of Orders is fondly termed, "the old land-marks."

To be iron-glue sticklers, real musty conserva

tives, in this regard, only works to deadness. As

leaves have their Nature-decreed time to fall and

wither, so institutions must be elastic enough to

stretch to current conditions. So long, therefore,

as an Order retains as a working factor those

humane, virtuous, and men-serving principles,

deathless in their Heaven-honoring nature, it can

properly carry on even through great changes in

mode and dressing prevail. This statement of the

writer, as the reader can well discern, freely and

fully applies the healing balm to all unhistoric

lapses, weaknesses, deficiencies, errors, and what

not, which may, or may not be considered ail

ments in and of our American Order's inalienable

heritage from antiquitous years. In the last analy

sis it is a vital fact that those Scottish gentlemen

—were they few or many—who brought across

the billowy Atlantic the constituted substance, the

amazingly rich and varied furnishments and de

greed codes which go to the make-up of what is

244 A HISTORY OF

known as the Order of the Knights Hospitallers of

St. John, Rhodes, and Malta, have earned every

American Knight's heartiest and life-lasting

thanks. The writer goes farther in saying that

the founders fully merit from Malta Knighthood

in America some special and substantial recogni

tion, generously bestowed, which would comport

with our mutual appreciation of the firmly estab

lished Order. As an historical reviewer the writer,

without fear or favor, endeavored to probe into

and uncover facts. All this research was wholly,

and properly, apart from his estimate and appre

ciation of the splendid work accomplished in our

changing times. No broken or lost "link" in an

Order's chain of years affects in the least degree

either the living reputation or character of any

member of the Order. Moreover, in the last

analysis, the outliving of the member is of pre

eminent importance.

It is in these United States of America that the

Order of Malta, as in no other nation, is encour

agingly growing. From 1868 to 1884, some six

teen years, we find from the Imperial Encamp

ment's Report, that there were eight Comman-

deries in our nation in working status. Quite in

accord with the initial history of every institution

among men, dissatisfaction, confusion, and side

stepping gained currency. The deplored fact

brought about the holding of a Council in the city

of Philadelphia, upon June 1st, 1889. The Im

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 245

perial Encampment of Glasgow, Scotland, was

represented at the Council by Sir Robert Stewart,

the Past Imperial Assistant Grand Master. All

matters bearing upon the disaffection were care

fully considered and amicably and satisfactorily

Adjusted, and an "Agreement of Union" was form

ulated and duly signatured. Since the date of this

important session, the Order in this nation has

been able to tabulate very pronounced progress,

while its outlook towards greater achievement

was never so propitious as at the present hour.

Prom the Report of the Supreme Commandery

for 1921, the number of working Commanderies

in the United States is tabulated at 356. This,

the reader can observe, is a remarkable advance

ment since the date of the Agreement of Union.

The first Grand Commandery was instituted in

the year 1893. Up to date there are six chartered

Grand Commandery jurisdictions. The following

list is explanatory as to dates of institution, as

also States:

Grand Commandery of Pennsylvania Nov. 18, 1892

New Jersey Jan. 3, 1893

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, Oct. 17, 1895

Maine and New Hampshire Sept. 15, 1904

New York Dec. 1, 1904

Ohio Jan. 10, 1920

Numerically considered, the State of Pennsyl

vania is the banner State. As to membership, this

State has greatly outdistanced all others, and

there manifestly is no slowing down to accommo

246 A HISTORY OF

date the slower advancements of other jurisdic

tions. However, this deer-hound speeding breeds

no fret or jealousy in the spirits of other State

bodies of Sir Knights, but rather fraternally stim

ulates, and is a source of mutual satisfaction, for

the reason that the Order is a unit in purpose and

spirit. Still, as the expanding work is today visu

alized, the stalwart banner State will do well to

look to its champion banner, for a significant

momentum in other jurisdictions is in the air, and

remarkable results are the order of the day.

The American Branch of the Order of Knights

Hospitallers of St. John, Rhodes, and Malta, has

cause to rejoice that it "carries on" altogether

apart from the clamor and invidious contention

which, obviously, obstructs and in much tends to

nullify the influence of the Order in other coun

tries. No question of priority rights hinders and

maims the Order in America. And, we may in

telligently query: Of what human or earthly im

portance practically considered, is the thought or

problem of priority? If a bushel of apples has

been picked a week or two earlier than another

bushel, providing the apples in both the one and

the other are sound and juicy, wherein is the

distinctive and preferential difference as to

choice? Even though the two bushels should

bear labels designating that they did not grow in

the same orchard, providing they are similar fruit

and altogether sound and luscious, would it not

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 247

be proof of silliness to reject the one because the

fruit-bearing trees grew not in the same field?

There has been penned a statement by the his

torian, Sir Richard Brown, Bart., which to the

writer tones a living truth, a truth well worthy

of every Sir Knight's hearty acceptance. He

writes, "The cross of St. John, when not worn as

a bauble, but as an outward sign of an earnest

Christian purpose, is as sure a symbol of the

true and sole nobility as patriot or philanthropist

can aspire to wear. The chivalry of the Order

of St. John is not the bastard chivalry which

prides itself in collars and ribbands, jewels and

stars; but the chivalry whose religion is that of

faith, hope, and charity, carried into all the rela

tions and habits of daily life."

The estimate of value as generally placed to the

credit or discredit of an Order, may, and often is,

incorrectly placed. It is the character factor

and status of members of the Order which deter

mines the valuation, not the constitutional code

and fabric which has made the Order possible.

Weed-upspringing in a field of excellent soil is a

deplorable eventuation, but the fact does not

properly evidence the ground's uselessness or

cheapness. Weeds implant and germinate in all

fields, and it is for those who oversee and work

the fields to outroot them to the soil's honor and

the field's fruitfulness. It is well to know that a

censorious critic outside or in the Order which he

248 A HISTORY OF

chooses to berate, is not one iota better in mind

and disposition than those who make up its mem

bership. The primal question is this: To what

end and for what purpose does the order func

tion? Also, is it properly equipped to justify the

hope that it can accomplish the high aim it has

in view? True enough, membership timber of

the proper quality is a necessary factor to sub

stantial results, especially so as to the men who

are recognized and are its officials. However

praiseworthy an automobile may be in its me

chanical construction, if an ignorant driver has

control of its wheel and levers, there is serious

reason to think of little else than wreckage. Now

in the light of such reasoning the Order of Malta

in America in an admirable manner stands the

test. Its purpose and aim is a man-ennobling one ;

its furnishments are second to no other organic

institution on earth; its Commanderies are com

posed of substantial and intelligent American

citizenry. All in all, from whatever view point

it is examined, it sums up a most excellent insti

tution, freely worthy of public recognition and

esteem.

Of course, it is not for the writer of this trea

tise to unveil to the reader's mind the interesting

warp and weft of the mind-instructive degrees

which comprise the ritualistic fabric of the Order.

Such knowledge is alone for its knightly members.

However, it can be stated that no Christian man

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 251

■will find aught else inwoven into the ritualistic

garmenting but that which is in acceptable blend

and accord with the Sacred Text, the Holy Scrip

tures. While confessedly it is unknowing to the

author of this treatise as to when, by whom, or

where the degrees originated, as there are no

writings that make it known, this lack of know

ledge in no way militates against their composi

tion, or robs them of their beauty and intrinsic

value. The serviceable value of a thing depends

not upon its having the stamp of past centuries

upon it. If it befits living men, and in every way

goes to minister to a real need, it is of useable

worth. Malta's degrees measure up in every way

to knighthood conditions, mentally, morally, and

fraternally.

Granted that it is a fact that what are denomi

nated "the old land-marks" are ill-defined, almost

obliterated, and most difficult to discern, the pres

ent fact that such an Order exists and functions,

possessing every furnishment essential to modern

knighthood, is sufficient to satisfy the average

man. The mortal who is extremely exacting as

to non-essential points is living in close kinship

with the cynic, and is more a despoiler than aught

else.

The militant phase of the old knighthood orders

is preserved, measurably, at least, in the fraterni

ties of our times, especially those which claim

kinship with the battling orders of crusading

252 A HISTORY OF

times. Both the Malta Sir Knights and the

Templars memorialize their parentage by donning

on public occasions very showy uniforms. In

herently in man is a love for expressive garment

ing. As to woman possessing the more o'er-

bounding passion for showy apparel, is question

able. Of willingness the writer leaves this

controversial matter for others to dwell upon.

Undoubtedly it is true that the dressing of the

soldier plays a drawing part in gaining recruits

for militant duties. This tendency has been noted,

and influentially used, in every age of mankind.

Not alone uniforms are attractively worn by

members of knighthood bodies, but an ostenta

tious displayment of badges, jewels, braidings,

and so forth, go to personal decoration. Perhaps

in no other way is self-consciousness and the

readiness to be looked upon as of elevated worth,

so conspicuously outwritten than in this manner.

However, as it is a harmless vanity, and goes to

brighten up what otherwise might be gauged as

dull and unattractive, it all goes to serve a pur

pose, it may be, a need. Not a vestige of militant

thought or purpose is now related to existent

knighthood, at least not to the orders which voice

the names of St. John of Malta and the Templars ;

hence it follows that the designation, knight, as

modernly used, from the stand-point in which it

was used in olden years, is a misnomer. However,

words change their meaning in the coursing of

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 253

time. Truly, no substantial loss has ensued by

the lapse of militarism in connection with these

orders of knighthood. Would that it were possible

for all nations of earth to reforge their weapons

of war—all of them—into virtuous tools of in

dustry and agriculture! Militarism ever and in

every nation is a hideous and burdensome evil,

however much showy pageantry is attached to it,

and certain dispositioned men prefer the public

distinction it brings them. Wherein is the

ennobled honor, one may ask, in attaining expert-

ness in human slaughtering? Still, this consti

tutes but one phase—the horrid one—of the pro

fession. To shield and preserve, while o'erwhelm-

ing the antagonist, is a vital part of the game of

blasting war.

"One to destroy, is murder by the law;

And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe;

To murder thousands, takes a specious name,

War's glorious art, and gives immortal fame."

Knights much prefer war's piercing weapons in

repose, not in resistless action. To them they but

symbolize Heaven's law of justice and equity. If

it be contended that weapons accomplish this in

bloody strife, it can be replied: where and when

has ensued a fierce and deathly conflict in which

the leaders and instigators of both armies did not

consider their contention was clearly for justice

and honor? Man slaying—and ever the offence-

less—is not justice administered, but hate in

254 A HISTORY OF

horrid infliction. Modern Knights are to be com

mended for their fraternal transformation of

war's weapons and wearing apparel. If military

lords could be constrained to do likewise, earth's

war-torn peoples might heartily rejoice, and

infamous burdens be cast off.

In concluding our review of stirring episodes in

bygone centuries, especially those in which the

brave Knights of St. John and the Knights of the

Temple participated and were, indeed, the promi

nent factors, to the reader it may appear that no

distinct proof has been penned as to an unbroken

lineage existing between the present day orders of

St. John of Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta, and

Knights Templars, and the ancient fraternities of

those names. Distinctly no : yet in some correla

tive degree and manner there is much in the fabric

which is declarative of relationship. The present

day orders, as they are fashioned, could not have

upsprung had there been no ancient root and

trunk from which to grow. They have out-sprung

from derivative orders, even though the parental

derivatives had gone into dissolution, as history

sets forth. Dissolution is by no means annihila

tion. To illustrate, there could not have been

much or any of the hewn timber, prepared by

Solomon, inserted in the rebuilt Temple which was

built upon the ruins of the original edifice. Such

a mechanical, rather, material fact, in no way

militated against the latter as being the Temple.

MALTA KNIGHTHOOD 265

The rebuilt edifice was not a counterfeit structure.

Whether, then, much or little of what made up

the organisms of the old orders had been inserted

in the rehabilitated ones of today, is not a vital

matter. These two orders exist among men as

the functioning exponents of the choicest princi

ples of what characterized the virtuous greatness

of the Knights of St. John Hospitallers, and the

Knights Templar. Membership in the one or the

other will attest the truth of this statement.

Cynics and unknowing babblers may continue to

cut their swaths in the field of contentious debate,

but the one who visualizes aright will clearly

know they have but scythed the embittered weed

crop of their own minds.

A NATION'S TRUE STRENGTH

By W. Henry Lannin

What makes a nation great?

Not enmassed hosts in glint of war,

Nor steel-clad ships with rifled spar,

And turrets fevering for their prey,

In naval pomp and war's array;

Not mints that press and stamp pure gold,

Nor luxury living men, proud, bold;

Not enstored goods in city hive,

Possessed by traders who contrive,

By advertising scheme and plan,

To sell to buyers, business fan;

Tis true, men term such nation strong,

But to one mind, at least, they're wrong.

A nation's strength is summed up true,

By moral fibre, what's Just, true,

Enthroned, ingrained in heart and mind,

Of men who are not conscience blind;

Who virtue own though coin be rare,

Who truth outlive, with others share;

Who daily master base desires,

Who're ever honest, are not liars;

Who open souls to all that's fair,

Will damage none a weight of hair;

Such men endecked on ship of State,

Do ever make a nation great.

Words change their meaning as time flies;

Truth's often wounded, never dies.

Thus strength is twisted to suit mould

Of worshippers of self, of gold;

Yet, as the planets swing in spheres,

Astounding great through passing years,

Men's thoughts, though concaved from straight line,

Return to truth, behold it shine.

Like brain with opium fumes accursed,

Men dream of riches, court gold first;

Count strength by coin that's owned in till,

To wake at last from falsehood's pill.

256

AUTHORITIES STUDIED AND CITED

Boisgelin's History of Malta (2 vols.), London, 1805.

The Achievements of the Knights of Malta, (2 vols.),

by Alexander Sutherland, Esq.

Memoir of the Illustrious and Sovereign Order of St.

John of Jerusalem, by Robert Bigsby, LL.D.

A History of the Knights of Malta, (2 vols.), by Major

Whitmore Porter.

Malta and the Knights Hospitallers, by Rev. W. K. R.

Bedford, M.A.

Knights of Malta, Ancient and Modern, by Sir Thomas

H. Gilmour.

History of the Popes, (3 vols.), by Archibald Bower,

Esq.

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, (4 vols.), by

Edward Gibbon.

Coins of the Grand Masters of the Order of Malta, by

Robert Morris, LL.D.

The Chair of Peter, by Count Murphy.

History of England, (5 vols.), by David Hume.

Encyclopedia Britannica: "Arts," "Malta," "Crusades,"

"Knights of the Temple."

History of France, by Eyre Evans Crowe.

Synoptical Sketch of the Illustrious and Sovereign

Order of Knights Hospitallers, by Hon. Sir

Richard Brown.

Buried Cities Recovered, by Rev. Frank S. DeHass

D.D.

257

258 AUTHORITIES

History of Knights Templars, by Mr. C. G. Addison.

Vertot's Knights of Malta, (2 vols.), London, 1728.

History of Knighthood, (2 vols.), by Hugh Clarke,

1784.

Military Religious Orders, by F. C. Woodhouse, M.A.,

London, 1879.

The History and Antiquities of the Round Church, by

William Wallen, F.S.A.

Malta, by Frederick W. Ryan.

The Knights Hospitallers in Scotland, by George

Thomas Beatson, M.D., C.B.

History of the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of

Free and Accepted Masons, 1891.

Historical Landmarks of Free Masonry, by Rev. G.

Oliver, D.D., 1858.

IMPORTANT HISTORIC DATES ^

Solomon's Temple dedicated b.c. 1005

Temple destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar 610

Temple rebuilt 519

Jerusalem rebuilt 445

Jerusalem in bands of Romans 63

The crucifixion of Jesus a.d. 34

Jerusalem destroyed 70

Jerusalem rebuilt 117

The emperor Constantine converted 325

Order of St. Lazarus founded 370

The Roman Empire divided 476

Mohammed born in Mecca 571

Mohammed's Hegira 622

Jerusalem taken by Omar the Arabian 637

Jerusalem given to Charlemagne 799

Amalfi merchants build hospital in Jerusalem 1048

Crusade army besieges Jerusalem 1099

Godfrey chosen as Christian King 1099

Clerkenwell Hospital founded 1101

Hospitallers become Knights of St. John 1118

Raymond du Puis chosen Grand Master 1118

Order of Knights of the Temple founded 1119

Order of St. John introduced into Scotland

in the reign of the Scottish king, David I 1124

Founding in Scotland of Priory Torphichen 1153

Dames of the Hospital left Jerusalem 1180

Clerkenwell Priory, London, England, built 1185

Jerusalem taken by the Turkish army 1187

Richard Coeur de Lion of England a crusader 1189

259

260 IMPORTANT HISTORIC DATES

Germanic Order of Knights founded 1192

Jerusalem recaptured by the crusaders 1228

Recaptured by the Turkish army 1244

Knights of St. John repair to Cyprus 1290

Knights of the Temple repaired to France

and arrested 1310

Order of Templars dissolved by royal decree 1310

Order of St. John capture island of Rhodes 1310

Jacques de Molai, Templar, burnt at stake 1312

Clerkenwell burnt by the rebel, Wat Tyler 1380

Constantinople taken by the Turkish army 1453

Clerkenwell rebuilt 1504

Rhodes torn from the St. John Knights 1523

Grand Master de Lisle Adam receives deed

of Malta 1530

English Branch suppressed by King Henry

VIII and all properties confiscated 1540

Scottish Branch dissolved under the admin

istration of Prior John Sandilands 1547-1596

Malta seized by Napoleon and Order dissolved 1798

Malta captured by British from French 1800

Renewal of the Order in England by authori

ty of the Capitular Commission held in

Paris, France 1827

Queen Victoria granted Royal Charter to

Order 1840

Scottish charters issued for American Com-

manderies 1870

American Supreme Grand Commandery

chartered 1889

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